


What's Left of Us

by DeerWorks



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: But I'll Try And Make Her Even A Little Bit Likeable, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, I Fucking Hate Abby, Joel isn't made a side character, Like It's Pretty Much Not Even Close To The Same Story, Lot's Of Changes, Not Beta Read, Survivor Guilt, Very Canon Divergent, We're Back On The Road Again, if that's even possible
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24878902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerWorks/pseuds/DeerWorks
Summary: 4 years after arriving in Jackson Ellie and Joel's relationship has become strained due to his actions and lies. However after a near death experience the two are forced back on the road again and forced to confront their problems.Everything including flashbacks remains the same however Ellie and Joel didn't talk after the party. After that everything is different.
Relationships: Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Comments: 71
Kudos: 352





	1. John and Terry

**Author's Note:**

> I have two large story ideas that are completely different but this is the one I decided to go with for now. I don't claim to be a masterful writer this is just for my own therapy because I really didn't enjoy Part II. (I won't bash anyone who did like it, if you did then more power to you I'm glad your wait was worth it.)

Go back 5 years and this woman wouldn’t be on the back of Joel’s horse. No he’d have left her there to distract the horde and buy him time to get away. But he ain’t that same man he was. Ellie changed him, made him better, made him give a shit about people again.

It might be the death of him but he’d rather his death come sooner than go back to the miserable man he was before her.

“Through here, my group’s staying in a lodge up ahead!” the woman yelled from behind his horse.

He followed her directions, turning to where she told him to. Joel didn’t like the idea of joining with more people he didn’t know but it wasn’t like he had any other options.

“C’mon, a little further boy,” Joel spoke to his horse.

“I think I see it,” Tommy screamed through the howling wind. As they kept riding Joel could faintly make out the outline of what seemed like the lodge she was talking about.

“That’s it right there!” she bellowed.

People seemed to already be opening the gate as more and more runners began swarming them. At least they seemed welcoming seeing as they shouldn’t be able to make out their faces through the storm.

Both he and Tommy rushed through the gates as they closed behind them. The second the three of them dismounted from the horses they all began firing at the runners piling up at the gate.

“Save your bullets!” A man yelled from behind them. Right after he did, molotovs were thrown on the infected, wiping them out within seconds.

“Nice work,” Tommy complemented.

“Holy shit,” the same man sighed, rushing to the woman they’d escorted here. “Great to see you again in one piece, Abby.”

“Yeah, you too,” she replied, embracing the man. As they did Joel got a good glimpse of the man's arm and the patch on the jacket. WLF.

“Where’s Mike?” the man asked.

“Shit,” she said with fear as her eyes widened with realization. “I don’t know we got separated.”  
  


“Shit Abby we can’t lose him he’s the only one who knows-”

Before he could finish Abby gave him a stern look which told him to keep his mouth shut. It was then that he finally noticed Joel and Tommy standing there and they both turned their attention to the two brothers. “You’re the ones who brought her back?”

“Yeah that’s us,” Tommy responded, Joel was silent as he still questioned why they were wearing WLF coats.

“Well we owe you two. Come inside, get some shelter from the storm,” he said, motioning for the others to follow them. Everyone started moving to head inside while Joel grabbed Tommy’s shoulders to get him to hang back.

“You see those patches?” Joel asked his brother.

“Yeah I saw ‘em.”

“The hell is the Washington Liberation Front doing down here?”

“Got no idea. Maybe they split off and left, maybe they stole the jackets, or the WLF could be relocating.”

“Still, I don’t like it. Just be careful.”

“Ain’t I always?”

“That a trick question?”

Tommy laughed, giving Joel a shove on the shoulder as they joined the group inside.

They lead the horses into the garage, patting them down to calm them.

“You done good boy,” Joel soothed his horse, patting him on the shoulder. He’d had him since the first day back at Tommy’s. The horse seemed to wanna buck everyone else off except for him and they’d been together since that day. Ellie was the one who gave him his name, called him Larry. He never understood why she always gave horses such stupid names.

“You two alright?” Someone from the group asked. He seemed like he was the youngest, a baseball cap on his head to keep his seemingly long hair out of his face.

“We’re good, thanks for the shelter.”

“Least we can do,” the kid assured, leaving the brothers alone in the garage.

“They seem friendly,” Tommy stated once he was sure they couldn’t be heard.

“Lots of folks seem friendly,” Joel argued. “Don’t mean they are.”

“I know, I know,” Tommy assured. “Still, we saved their friend’s life. Don’t think they’re ready to jump us just yet.”

“Even still we’re outnumbered in here.”

“I know the plan.”

“Good, best we stick to it,” Joel said. Both he and Tommy left the horses to rest and joined the rest of the group in the lodge. It was a nice place, they had a fire going where the woman he’d come to know as Abby seemed to be getting warm.

“Here,” another woman with shorter hair said, approaching them with two steaming mugs. “Sure you could use some energy.”

“Oh shit,” Joel stammered, it was coffee. “Where the hell did you find this.”

“You’d have to ask the guy we got it from,” she answered. “I didn’t catch your names.”

“I’m Terrence,” Tommy responded, holding out his hand. “You can call me Terry.”

“Mel,” the woman answered.

“This here’s my brother,” Tommy said, pointing a thumb towards Joel.

“Johnathan,” Joel said, holding his hand out to shake hers as well. “I prefer John.”

It was the names they’d decided on when they headed out. They always alternated different names for when they left Jackson due to the fact that occasionally people would be hostile and using the same fake name every time practically makes it your real name so best to have a rotation.

“Well, John and Terry, that storm doesn’t seem like it’s clearing up anytime soon so looks like we’re gonna be stuck together for a little bit.”

Joel didn’t like the idea of being stuck with a group of people he didn’t know. Too many things that could go wrong, being surrounded by walls and surrounded by others. It didn’t matter how capable of a survivor he was, if this situation at some point turned hostile he’d have no chance of ever making it out.

“Oh no really we should be getting out of your hai-”

“Oh please,” Mel interrupted. “With the storm plus the horde out there you guys won’t last a minute. You should wait till it passes then you can run off as you please.”

Joel turned his head to one of the big windows in the lodge. As he looked out all he could see was white, none of the pine trees or anything. Him and Tommy would be fucked if they stepped foot back out there.

“Stayin’ for a bit can’t hurt I guess,” Joel said reluctantly.

“Great,” Mel smiled kindly. “Then go warm up.”

She walked away, heading off into another room to probably look for someone.

“How ‘bout you try and chat these people up,” Joel whispered to Tommy. “Figure out what they're doing down here.”

“Alright, what’re you gonna do?”

Joel turned his attention to the fire, where Abby was huddled underneath a blanket. “I’m gonna warm up by the fire.”

Tommy frowned at that, clearly wanting to take a load off as well.

“You’re the kinder out of the two of us, it's best you get to know these people,” Joel insisted.

“Fine,” Tommy groaned. “You owe me one.”

“Sure, now get outta here.”

With that, Tommy went searching for people he could pry at while Joel headed to the fire to talk with the person they’d risked a hell of a lot for.

“Hey there,” Joel announced himself, Abby turning to look at him. “This spot taken?”

“No, please,” she said quietly, motioning to the spot beside her. Joel grabbed a cushion from the nearby couch and placed it on the floor beside her. “You’ve heard my name by now, but I haven’t heard yours.”

“John,” he said, not a trace of a lie in his face.

“Abby, as I’m sure you know.”

“I do,” Joel said. “My brother’s name is Terry.”

“Enjoying your coffee?” She asked, eyeing the mug in his hands.

“Yes ma’am,” he answered. “Just as good as I remember.”

“Glad to hear it,” she smiled. “And thank you for saving my life. Most people probably would’ve kept moving.”

“It wasn’t no problem.”

“You and your brother live near here?”

“No, just passing through. We ain’t too keen on stayin’ in one place for too long.”

“I get that,” she said. “Anybody else in your group or is it just you?”

“His wife and my… daughter,” Joel mumbled that last word. It was best to be partly truthful to make it easier for it to come across as who he really was.

“Are they safe?”

“Hope so, we was holed up in an abandoned house and me and Terry got caught lookin’ for supplies.”

“So you have a daughter?”

“I do,” half-truth. That’s what Ellie was to Joel regardless of what she thought of him. He’d always be there for her if she ever needed him again.

“What about the mother?”

“She... ain’t around anymore.”

“Oh… I’m sorry” she mumbled, there was an awkward silence for a moment. For her because she thinks she’s just brought up a difficult memory for him and awkward for Joel because this was the first time he’d really thought about Catherine in years. She could be alive for all he knows, maybe she’d been killed somewhere along the line, maybe she was dead on the ground somewhere spewing out spores, or maybe she was still shambling around somewhere as a bloater or a clicker or something else.

“It’s alright,” Joel assured her. “Happened some time ago.”

“Still I know what that’s like. To lose someone close to you.”

“Sadly I think we all know how that feels by now.”

“I’m sure there’s a few lucky people. None come to mind.” He gave her a small smile at that. He envied those who had the pleasure of never having lost someone close to them. The world was so huge that Joel could say there was at least one person out there who’d had a perfect twenty-five year run. “What’s your daughter like?”  
  


“She turned nineteen this summer,” Joel said, fondly remembering when Ellie was much younger and much happier. The years had certainly hardened her sooner than he’d have hoped and it was large in part his own doing. The lies and deceit had hurt her far more than the world they lived in. “She was a goofy kid but she had to grow up quick. But I tried my best to let her be a normal kid, guess my best wasn’t good enough.”

“We all gotta grow up,” Abby argued. “I’m sure you’re a great father.”

“I ain’t so sure about that one.”

“Why do you say that?”

He felt like he was back in church. Stepping into the confessional booth to confess his sins and pray for forgiveness. He’d always found it easier to lament his troubles to strangers because he didn’t give a damn if they judged him, it’s not like he’d see them much ever again.

“I’ve messed far too much up and it don’t seem like she’s gonna forgive me for it anytime soon.”

“What’d you do?” She pried.

“Kept the truth from her and it was one big truth,” he was willing to share a fair bit with her but he had his limits.

“Have you tried talking to her?”

“She don’t seem like she wanna talk.”

“You should try,” Abby replied instantly. “Before it’s too late.” There was something in her voice that sounded like regret. A pain that could never be bandaged or fixed.

Joel reflected on her words. He’d thought of talking to Ellie but he didn’t think that’s what she wanted. She’d completely ignored him for two years ever since she discovered the truth at the hospital and nobody could blame her because there was nobody to blame but himself.

She’d always had a feeling and he could always tell. She always knew there was more to what he told her, something he wasn’t letting her in on and one day her curiosity got the better of her and she ran off to the hospital to find out for herself.

If things were ever gonna be fixed it would be up to her. He’d try and make everything better in a heartbeat but those attempts would make everything worse. But if she ever wanted to try and make things better he’d be right there waiting.

“Abby!” Someone yelled from near the entrance of the lodge.

“What is it Jordan?”

“Mike’s here.”

She immediately shot to her feet and ran with the rest of the group to the door while Joel and Tommy followed from behind.

“Learn anything?” Joel said quietly to his brother.

“Nothin’” Tommy replied. “They was real cagey ‘bout why they’re down here.”

“That don’t sound too reassuring.”

“It ain’t,” Tommy agreed. “Learn anything sitting by the fire?”

“Well she seemed to trust me enough.”

“Well let’s just hope she ain’t pretending.”

They arrived where the group was gathered by the door to see the person they'd been waiting for. He looked like he was around the same age as Abby. A head of short brown hair, he was lean, looked like a runner's build. The most notable feature about him was the scar on the side of his head, it seemed like a bullet had grazed him. He came in with a revolver in one hand and a pipe in the other.

“We thought you were dead,” Mel scolded. 

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Mike snapped back, pulling off his gloves.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Uh-huh,” he said before turning his attention to the two brothers. “And who’s this?”

“They’re the ones who got me back here,” Abby answered.

“Terry,” Tommy said, putting his hand forth which Mike took in a firm handshake. “This here’s John.”

Joel put his hand forth which Mike took as well. When their eyes met Joel really didn’t like the look he was giving him. It was curious, studying and taking in every detail.

“Have we met before?” Mike asked but something in his voice made it seem like it wasn’t much of a question.

“I don’t think so,” Joel answered, he hoped to god that whoever this man was didn’t recognize him because if he did he most likely didn’t have pleasant memories of him.

“I don’t know I just can’t place it but I feel like we’ve met somewhere,” Mike continued, the beginnings of a small smile forming on his face.

“Think you got me confused,” Joel said, trying to dissuade him.

“Yeah,” Mike mumbled. “That’s probably it.” Nothing in his voice was reassuring and Joel wanted to get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

Before Joel could even think of what he could possibly do a shot rang out and Joel was shot in the foot, the pipe connecting with the side of his head.

“Shit!” He heard Tommy scream before he was hit over the head too. Joel’s vision began fading as and his hearing became muffled.

“What the fuck Mike!” He could hear Abby scold as he barely saw her trying to restrain him.

“This is the guy we’ve been looking for,” Mike stated. “Joel Miller.”


	2. Normalcy Built Upon Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a nice chapter before shit gets serious. (Btw I don't really ship Dina and Ellie that much so if you want to see them given good writing this might not be the place.)

A daughter. Of course he had a daughter. Of course he had to be a father just to make this difficult. Of course even though he was unconscious and handcuffed to a chair of course he still wouldn’t just go down easy.

He had to make her be the one who orphaned a child, a daughter.

_No_ , she tried to assure herself, _his daughter won’t be alone. She’ll have this brother of his._

They didn’t plan on killing him too, they’d be no different than the monster before them. But this all would’ve been so much easier had he been a complete asshole to her from the start. If he’d been the complete monster she’d made him out to be in her head. But no, he had to save her life, he had to be kind and polite to her by the fire.

She had a picture of him in her head not too long ago. She envisioned him as a pathetic, lonely old man who lived in some shack by a lake. They’d bust down his door, splatter his brains all over the wall and leave satisfied.

Of course he had people who cared about him and of course she’d be the one taking that away.

But then she thought of it, thought of everything he’d taken away from her, everything she held dear and the chance to save the world.

Anything good about him didn’t matter to her, he took everything away from her and everything away from the world. The moment he woke up he wouldn’t be long for this world.

“Are you gonna do it or not?” Mike interrupted her thoughts, staring at her impatient.

“Not yet,” Abby answered. “I mean, don’t you want him to be awake for this?”

____________________________

_Earlier..._

It was morning but Ellie didn’t really want to go on patrols today. Instead she just sat on the porch picking away at the guitar. She was playing a song by that one artist Joel called “the king” or Elvis. From what people described he seemed weird but he had some nice music.

It was one of the first songs he’d taught her because apparently everyone who picked up a guitar was supposed to learn _Can’t Help Falling In Love._ But it was a nice song she’d give him that.

She hadn’t picked up the guitar in a long time, not since that day she returned from the hospital. She shoved it in her closet and almost forgot it was there. But this morning with her closet door open she figured maybe it wouldn’t hurt to pick it up, play it and try to get her mind right.

She took some time to reflect back on the events of the party last night. Dina kissed her, _nice,_ Seth was a dick, _not nice,_ then Joel told him to fuck off, she didn’t know how to feel about that one. She knows he didn’t mean to piss her off and hell nobody except her knew why she was pissed off.

Sometimes she thought of forgiving him, maybe asking him to move back into the house so she could try and work things out again. But then she’d remember his lies and deceit and what he took away from the world and those thoughts of forgiveness were immediately shoved to the back of her mind.

As she absentmindedly strummed she realized she was playing a familiar melody. An e chord, then f, then back to e, then d. She stopped before she could start singing, placing the guitar beside her against the wall.

“That sounds nice,” someone said from beside her at the steps of the porch. She turned her head to see it was Jesse.

“Hey Jess.”

“New song?”

“Nah, just one I haven’t played in a while.”

“Ah… well sorry to interrupt your morning but we got patrols.”

Ellie groaned as she rose to her feet. “You think I can have a break today?”

“No can do. Jack used his day off which means you’ve gotta fill in.”

“He’s using his day off ‘cause he’s hungover,” Ellie complained.

“And you’re not?”

“I had like half a glass!”

“Oh, well that’s just pathetic.”

“Oh fuck off,” Ellie laughed.

“I’ll let you run the shorter route today,” Jesse relented. “I heard your night was pretty interesting after I left.”

_Shit._ “Look, Dina kissed me, I’m sure she was just drunk, she didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I was talking about Seth…” _Double shit._ “You kissed Dina?”

“I- I thought you… shit I’m sorry.”

“Relax, I’m messing with you. I don’t care, let’s go.”

“You’re the worst,” she said, rising to her feet to join him.

“It is kinda fucked up you did that though.”

“Yeah, yeah, rib me about it later,” she said, descending the stairs as they travelled the streets. The streets of Jackson were crowded with kids creating snow forts and launching snowballs at each other. After Jackson was made one of the most secure and functional settlements in probably the world people got a little… busy. And soon enough lots of kids showed up. 

It was good for them though, all these kids had lots of others their age to make friends with. She had to stick with her small group. There weren’t too many kids born at the same time as her that have made it this far.

“Hey about Jack,” Ellie said, following behind Jesse. “Could you tell him I want my rematch?”

“Ellie I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jesse responded.

“C’mon I was really close I almost had him!” She argued.

“If I remember correctly he’s the one who dropped you and you had trouble getting out of bed for a week.”

“Well I’ve improved.”

“Yeah, so has he so it cancels out.”

“Okay he got in one lucky punch-”

“And that punch knocked you the fuck out.”

“I swear I reached my feet by the count of ten.”

“Look,” Jesse said. “If you wanna step back into his cage then you go ask him.”

“I will,” she answered. It wasn’t too long ago, her and Jack hadn’t really talked before but he’d been good friends with Jesse. But when she stepped up to his little open challenge they both gained a little mutual respect for each other. It was probably one of the toughest fights Ellie had ever been in, mainly because she wasn’t much for head on confrontation and was better at staying quiet and sneaking around to take out infected or people from behind.

“Hey we need to make a quick stop before we head out,” Jesse announced as he made a turn into a familiar bar.

“Oh no, Jess I don’t-” but it was too late he was already inside. “Ugh,” she groaned as she begrudgingly followed behind him.

She navigated the people crowding the inside to see Maria already talking to Jesse. “Hey Ellie, come over here!”

“What,” Ellie grumbled, already knowing what she wanted.

“Seth wants to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well I don’t wanna talk to that dick.”

“Just listen please,” Maria said through her teeth as Seth came out from the back.

“Hey Ellie,” Seth said quietly, clearly Maria had torn into him last night. “Look, I’m really sorry. Seriously I had way too much to drink, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Sure.”

Seth pressed his lips together because Ellie clearly wasn’t buying his bullshit. “Here,” he said, pushing a package before him. “Heard you’re headed out with Dina today so I made you sandwiches.”

“Okay,” she said monotone.

_Shit I didn’t know I was headed out with Dina. I should’ve showered._

“They’re steak.”

It was a shame because Seth made really good steak sandwiches but she wouldn’t be taking any from him.

Maria grabbed them, shoving them into Ellie’s chest. “Thank you Seth.”

She turned right around to see Jesse. “Here,” she said, immediately handing him the sandwiches.

“What’re they?”

“Dick sandwiches,” he frowned at that. “Steak.”

“Uh… you sure you don’t want ‘em?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Alright, your loss.”

Ellie went to follow Jesse out before Maria grabbed her arm. “Before you go, I know things are tense between you and Joel because of… something. But you should try and talk with him, you know, work things out.”

“I don’t know,” Ellie answered. “Maybe.”

“He does really care about you just… give it a shot.”

“I’ll think about it,” Ellie said, turning to follow Jesse.

Ellie followed Jesse out of the bar and towards the stables where they saw Dina battling Jack and a couple other little kids in a snowball fight.

“Dina!” Jesse yelled.

“Just gimme a minute!” she yelled back, but that momentary distraction was enough to allow Jack to run forward and leap off one of the platforms and nail Dina right in the face with a snowball.

“Oh, that don’t look like it felt too good,” Jack taunted, brushing his brown hair out of his face. “You got a little something on your face.”

“Alright, I’m out,” she announced to everyone.

“Oh c’mon don’t be like that!” He yelled after her.

“I gotta go anyways!”

“I’ll be at the stables,” Jesse mumbled to Ellie. “Don’t take too long.”

“Sure,” she responded as Jesse turned to leave. “Hey,” Ellie said awkwardly as Dina approached the fence.

“Hi there.”

“That looked nasty.”  
  


“Yeah he takes these things pretty seriously.”

“I can tell…” she laughed before they fell into awkward silence.

“This is pretty awkward huh,” Dina said nonchalantly.

“Yeah,” Ellie giggled. “Sorry for running off last night.”

“Oh no, don’t be it’s my fault. I started it all--”

“I know but still I shouldn’t’ve just left you there like that.”

“Well still you shouldn’t be the one apologizing that should be me. I mean I don’t want you to think--”

“No don’t worry I’m not reading into it or anything.”

“Here watch this.” She said but didn’t do anything or say anything afterwards.

“What?”

“Just wanted to see if you let me finish a sentence,” she smirked.

Ellie rolled her eyes at that then looked away awkwardly again.

“So we cool?” Dina asked.

“Yeah, we’re cool,” Ellie assured. “Let’s get going.” But before Ellie could turn and head to the stables she was nailed in the head with a snowball. “Ow! What the-”

“You see that little man? That’s how you throw a damn snowball!” Jack told one of the little kids who was looking at him like the coolest person in the world. “You wanna stop sucking each others’ dicks and finish this snowball fight.”

“Jack!” Dina screamed. “There’s children.”

“Oh trust me you should hear the things they say!” He turned his attention to Ellie, tossing a snowball in the air and catching it in the same hand. “C’mon Ellie. Don’t you wanna get me back?”

She did but she needed to get going on her patrols. But then a thought occurred. “You know what, I’ll join on one condition.”

“Oh yeah and what’s that?”

“You give me my rematch!”

Jack stopped tossing his snowball and the smile was wiped off his face, despite what some people might say it was a really close fight and deep down Jack knew that. But then he quickly grinned and went back to the cocky asshole persona. “Deal, now think fast!” He said before whipping a snowball which she quickly dodged.

“Oh I’m gonna get you for that!”

Dina was right, Jack took this really seriously. Seems like he and the kids met up at some point to discuss strategy because he was calling shit out and these kids would immediately either do some basic action like taking cover or one would run somewhere without a snowball and someone else would toss them one and hit either Dina or Ellie with it.

“Ant pile! Ant pile!” He yelled and all the kids ran to Dina, piling on top of her.

“No, get off of me you little monsters!”

“Just you and me!” Jack exclaimed, charging forward with a snowball in hand and leaping off of a platform. But Ellie dodged the incoming blast and threw one directly at Jack’s face in mid-air.

“Is that ten?” She yelled to Dina as the kids started getting off of her.

“Yup,” Dina confirmed.

“Well looks like I’ll see you this weekend,” she said, turning to Jack.’

“Guess so,” he responded. “Gg though, gave us a run for our money.”

She did admittedly have some fun which was hard to come by these days with her patrols and not talking to Joel.

“Well we better get going, bet Jesse’s fuming.”

“Trust me I’ve rarely seen that guy mad, you’ll be fine but get outta here.”

With that, her and Dina left for the stables, seeing their horses. Ellie grabbed hers by the reins, stroking its snout in a greeting. “Hey Shimmer,” she spoke softly.

“Hey, where’ve you two been?”

“Getting her rematch,” Dina answered.

“Oh no,” Jesse said, rubbing his palm across his face.

“Trust me I’ll kick his ass this time.”

“Alright but when you’re laying on the floor I won’t be helping you out.”

“Fine by me,” Ellie responded, she had a bit of a giddy feeling but she knew she’d need to get in a workout before she got in the cage because as much as she claimed she’d win this time if she went in there cocky she was gonna get her ass handed to her.

Her and Dina lead their horses to the front gates, following in behind Jesse. He turned to give his usual run down/speech. It’s not like it was a bad speech, it just got tedious hearing it so much.

“You all know the drill. Run your routes. Mark your logbooks. Clear any infected you see. You run into anything you can’t handle, you come back.” He finished. “All right now get outta here.”

  
  



	3. Hesitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Dina's patrol's went exactly the same as in the game.

“Did you hear that?” Dina asked, Ellie prayed to god it was nothing and just the wind throwing something against the wall.

“Anyone down there?” She heard someone ask, recognizing it as Jesse’s voice.

“Jesse?!” Dina called out, rushing to get her clothes back on as Ellie did the same. She was gonna murder him for this one. “Just stay back there!”

“You guys okay?” He called back, completely ignoring Dina’s request and running over to where they were. “Are you fucking ki--”

“What’re you doing!”

“What am I doing? What’re you doing! You’re supposed to be on patrol!”

“Turn around!” She yelled. “There’s a goddamn blizzard outside and you’re one to talk, giving us shit about patrol. What’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the lookout”

“I would be but Tommy and Joel never showed up.”

“Wait what?” Ellie said, her head shooting up from the buttons of her pants to look at Jesse. “What do you mean they didn’t show up?”

“What do you think I mean? We waited for an hour and we still haven’t seen them. I went out looking for their horses when I saw lights and figured they might be here.”

“Maybe they just went back to town?” Dina suggested.

“No they wouldn’t do that without being replaced,” Ellie shot down. Now she was worried, they might be caught out somewhere and trapped by a horde. No matter how angry she was with everything Joel’s done she couldn’t lose him forever. “How much of their region have you covered?”

“Not much,” Jesse answered.

“If we split up we can cover more ground and find them in a few hours,” Ellie commanded.

“No, no. We shouldn’t ride solo, we don’t know what’s out there,” Jesse argued.

“Exactly! What if they need help?”

It didn’t take much for Jesse to relent, he knew fighting would take too much time, time that they needed. “Okay, I’ll head west, Dina can take south, and you come from the east. But be smart about it, yeah?”

“Got it,” Ellie and Dina both said as they headed out.

_ He better be okay. _

____________________________

  
  


It was dark and cold, he wanted to open his eyes but they were too heavy, he couldn’t see anything and his hearing was completely muffled. Everything was blurry from his vision to his hearing to his memory. He backtracked, thinking back to where he was and how he got there. He was running his routes, him and Tommy got caught, Abby...

“Alright I’m sick of this,” he heard someone say. “Wake the fuck up!”

Directly after hearing that he felt a fist collide with the side of his face, it was hard and vicious and he definitely knew where he was now, just didn’t know why. Not only that but his foot was screaming in pain.

“The hell is this?” Joel groaned, rolling his head around. It was a hard ass punch and that spot would definitely be swollen by tomorrow, if tomorrow ever came. He looked around the room, spotting Tommy knocked out cold on the floor. “Terry!”

“You mean Tommy?” Joel’s head snapped towards the man who said that, the same who shot him in the foot and knocked him out. “Cut the shit. We know who you are Joel.”

“I swear if you-”

“He’ll be fine,” Abby answered, cutting him off. Her warmth from before had now been replaced with a cold, hard, and angry stare. “We only want you.”

“Whatever it is you want I ain’t givin’ it to you.”

“Oh but you will,” Mike interjected, coming up close. “You see it’s simple; what I want…” he leaned in close, right next to Joel’s ear so he could whisper. “I just want you to die.”

Immediately his fist connected with Joel’s face again and that’s when he felt his wrists, shackled with handcuffs. He’d practiced escaping them, dislocate the thumb and slip out. But then what? He’d still be surrounded and have nothing and nowhere to go. And anything he did wouldn’t be quick enough even if it was just her here, at least not without a distraction. This really didn’t look good.

“Move,” Abby growled, shoving Mike aside and she  _ just _ about hit harder than him that the difference was noticeable.

_ Wait for her to hit you again,  _ Joel thought to himself.  _ Then dislocate your thumb. _

The second punch came and he timed it perfectly, now he could slip out. He wanted to scream out in pain but he pushed it down.

“Jesus,” another woman whispered, her hair was curly and pulled back, its colour matching the tone of her skin.

“You can leave if you want, Nora,” Abby gritted through her teeth, her eyes never leaving Joel’s.

“Nah, I’m staying right here.”

“This is taking too long,” Mike said, marching up to her. “Quit prolonging this shit and get on with it before we have the whole town on top of us.”

Joel really wishes Mike hadn’t said that because after that she started hitting harder and faster. Blood was running out of his nose as the vision in his left eye became more and more blurry.

He hoped someone would hurry up because he couldn’t take much more of this.

____________________________

  
  


First stop for Ellie was the Baldwin lodge. It’s usually welcome grandeur was now replaced with a looming presence in the blistering cold and dark blizzard. But some of the windows glowed with light which was all she needed to think that maybe Joel and Tommy were hiding out in there.

She ran faster than she ever had in her life, squeezing through the broken fence and running into the lodge.

It was quiet, she couldn’t hear either Tommy or Joel but she knew that somebody was here because of the lights.

“Joel?” She spoke into the silence. As if in answer she heard a cry of pain coming from downstairs. It was a voice she recognized all too well and she wished it wasn’t true what she heard.

“Shit,” she gasped, rushing down the stairs as fast as she could. She saw bullets scattered about on counters and shelves but ignored them because she couldn’t waste any time. She followed the cries to the basement, careful to make sure she didn’t get caught before she could make it but she didn’t see anyone. She moved quietly and quickly down the stairs, creaking the door open slowly.

But what she saw made her throw caution to the wind. Joel was on the ground, tied to a chair. He was bloody and beaten down and she was stupid, moving foward instead of shooting from the door. Someone grabbed her gun, ripping it from her hands and tossing it to the tile floor. The struggle had brought both of them to their knees and she quickly drew her knife, slashing him across the face. Two others grabbed her, forcing her to the floor and pinning her down. She was gonna kill all of them. 

“Get off me!” She screamed. “Get the fuck off me!” She moved her head, seeing Tommy had already been knocked out cold and thrown left on the ground. 

“Bitch!” The one she’d slashed screamed, kicking her twice in the gut.

“You got her! Look you got her, okay?” Someone told him, grabbing him to pull him away but she barely noticed the pain. She was too filled with rage.

“You’re gonna fucking die!” She screamed at the towering woman currently beating Joel down.

They were all talking, arguing about not keeping her out of the lodge but she’s too focused on the scene right in front of her. She constantly screamed to ‘let him go’ and yelling threats to everyone in the room. 

____________________________

  
  


“We gotta get outta here before the whole town’s on top of us,” the man from before said, the one who greeted Abby when they’d arrived. “End it, now.” He said, handing her something, probably metal. Maybe a bat or a pipe.

One of Joel’s eyes was completely fucked but the other could see just fine. It could see Ellie on the ground screaming in anger and fear, he saw the man who kicked her. He’d be dead already if it was up to him.

He looked up at her, seeing her raise the bat above her head to bring it down on his own. It was now or never.

“Please please please don’t do this,” Ellie cried. Abby was about to bring it down on Joel’s head until she heard that, she looked back at Ellie one more time and that moment's hesitation was all he needed. He kicked her legs out from under her, slipping out of the handcuffs. He should be unconscious or dead right now, he should feel the pain in the hole in his foot with every step but the adrenaline let him keep pushing through.

As she fell her gun fell out of her holster and onto the floor, Joel grabbed it immediately shooting as best he could with the vision he had. He killed the man who had Ellie pinned and missed the other, the woman he now knew was Nora.

Ellie quickly grabbed her gun, shooting wildly, hitting Mike in the shoulder as he screamed out in pain and fell back into the wall.

“Go!” Joel screamed, grabbing Tommy’s limp body and dragging it with all his strength.

Ellie did most of the dragging while Joel moved as fast as he could, the adrenaline working wonders. The WLF kept shooting them and they returned fire. They aimed to kill and Joel and Ellie just needed to keep them back.

“Horses,” Joel panted. “In the garage.”

“Okay.”

They made a sprint to the garage, Joel’s vision almost fading now and again but he kept moving as best he could. They made it to the garage, opening the door and throwing Tommy on the back.

It took everything in him to get on the back of Larry but he made it nonetheless.

Ellie threw open the garage door and they both rode off. Lucky for them it seemed the horde had moved on.

Joel faded in and out of consciousness but Larry luckily stuck to following Ellie.

“Just a little further Joel!”

He could see the walls of Jackson through the white expanse of snow. He made it about halfway down the hill before he collapsed and his vision faded to black.


	4. We Are Where We're Needed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel wakes up in the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just finished Bioshock Infinite and it was so incredibly well written. It's unlikely but I'd love to see another Bioshock game one day in the future. (Also sorry this took a while I had trouble with this chapter.)

_Beep… beep… beep_

That’s all he heard, there was nothing but darkness and if it weren’t for the constant of the beeps that signified the beating of his heart he’d have assumed this was what death was. That it was simple in that there was nothing afterwards, just simple blackness.

Or perhaps this was hell in that there is no hell. Those who’ve lived a good life get to ascend to the heavens above while those who’ve sinned with no repentance have to suffer an eternity in the dark.

If that were true then God must be bored with the lack of arrivals in twenty-five years.

Joel doesn’t know where all these thoughts on death and what's after came from. Perhaps it was the darkness accompanied by the constant beeping and he just needed thoughts to fill that void or perhaps it was the fact that that was the most certain it was over for him in twenty-five years. Even when he’d been impaled five years ago a large part of him still somehow believed he could pull through. But there, in that lodge surrounded by armed men and women with Tommy unconscious on the ground he was almost certain it would be his end and part of him thought of just letting go and drifting.

Laying on the ground, with Abby ready to bring it to an end he wasn’t shocked that he didn’t see the light.

The beeping continued and finally he opened his eyes, or eye. One was covered in bandaging. When he opened it he saw he was back Jackson in their local hospital setup. His foot and eye and other parts of him they’d beat down had all been bandaged up.

What shocked him most was when he opened his eye he spotted Ellie, sleeping soundly in the chair next to him with her headphones on. 

She wasn’t close enough to hold but close enough that he could graze the back of his finger against her head and brush the hair off her forehead.

That little contact was enough to rouse her from her sleep and her eyes, seemingly uncertain, slowly lifted to meet his own. Her next breath came out uneven as if she could weep and he hoped she didn’t feel too horrible.

She immediately rushed to him, gripping him stronger than any bloater could. It hurt like hell with his injuries but he didn’t care because for the first time in two years he got to hold his baby girl again.

She hadn’t forgiven him yet, he knew that. But he hoped that maybe she would try now.

“Hey kiddo,” he said, his voice raspy. She didn’t respond, she just held on tighter as if to ensure he was really awake and here now.

It was soon after that Tommy entered the room, he looked beat up with bruises on his face but he didn’t look nearly as bad as Joel.

He approached Ellie, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Mind if we had a moment?” He asked softly. Ellie slowly removed herself from Joel and got up to leave. He could see the remnants of tears in her eyes when she looked back one more time before heading out the door.

“You ain’t lookin’ too good,” Joel joked.

“Well I never looked too great to begin with,” Tommy chuckled, taking the seat Ellie had previously occupied. “She dragged us both through them gates.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Joel said, he knows when Ellie’s determined enough she’ll go to whatever lengths to get what she wants done.

“She didn’t leave y’know? Not until today.”

It brought a small smile to his face to hear that she’d stuck by him until he’d awoke.

“Now it’s time for some serious talk,” Tommy frowned causing Joel to frown as well because he knew what he wanted to talk about. “What did those people want?”

“All I know is they wanted me dead. Some vendetta.”

“What for?”

Joel let out a small laugh at the question because he indeed had the same question. “Tommy my hands ain’t anywhere close to being clean. Y’know how many people I’ve hurt I’m surprised it's taken someone this long to hunt me down.”

“But what could you have done to piss off the WLF? You ain’t never been to Seattle, have you?”

“I don’t recall visiting,” Joel answered which made this all the more confusing. “You recognize any of them?”

“Can’t say I did. Why? You think they were Fireflies?”

“It ain’t impossible,” Joel said, his eyes diverting to the door that led to the outside of the hospital. When he saved Ellie he left a lot of destruction in his wake. The Fireflies had disbanded but remaining Fireflies could’ve easily joined with the WLF. “But that kid, Mike, he recognized me.”

Tommy nodded, it was obvious that he’d recognized Joel but it could’ve been from any number of places. Joel didn’t exactly keep a list of the numerous people he’d encountered and he was never quite good with faces.

“They just after you?”

“Abby said they planned on letting you go. They only wanted me.” And he’d killed another one of their men meaning this was far from the end.

“Well shit,” Tommy sighed. “What’re we gonna do?”

“Well…” Joel started, he hated the thought. He wanted to banish it and bury it six feet under but he couldn’t. “I could leave.”

Tommy laughed as if it was some stupid joke. It was the same laugh he gave him when they stole one of Ellie’s joke books and brought if on patrol so they could laugh at how stupid they were. Only Joel wasn’t laughing and soon enough Tommy wasn’t either.

“You’re serious?” Tommy mumbled.

“I am,” Joel said, his voice and expression showing no signs of him being untruthful because he wasn’t.

“The hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“Tommy this is the WLF, Jackson can’t withstand them.”

“Who says we can’t?” Tommy argued. “Who’s to say the WLF is willing to send enough men to take Jackson? We can hold it.”

“How many will die over me?”

“Since when do you care about that?”

“Since when do you not?” Joel almost yelled. “These people are trained Tommy. You kill the right people in Jackson and the whole town is vulnerable.” While there were many people who worked on patrols there weren’t enough capable killers to defend against even that small squad in the lodge. At least not as capable as him and Tommy. “I don’t wanna leave but we know what these people will do. Threaten the town unless you hand me over and unfortunately I want to live.”

He’d changed so much in the past five years and he couldn’t tell if it was for better or worse. Five years ago he’d have gladly stayed and advise they be ready for an attack, even if it put all these innocent families and children at risk but he’d opened up to many of these people and built relationships, grown attached. One man wasn’t worth bringing hell upon Jackson, especially a man on the road there already.

He knew Tommy didn't mean to imply he didn't care about the people living in this town, in fact it was all he really cared about minus his family. He was just trying to convince him to stay.

“And what about Ellie?”

That’s what hurt the most.

“I’m leavin’ her here.”

Tommy didn’t argue with him on that one. It wasn’t fair to ask her to leave everything and everyone behind just for him. 

“What if she decides to follow you?”

“She won’t-”

“But what if she does?”

“Could…” Joel looked away. It was a shitty thing to ask but if she did want to follow him it would be better. “Could you tell her I’m gone once I’ve got me a good head start? She won’t follow if I’m too far for it to matter.”

Tommy couldn’t side with him on that one. “Last time you tried to dump that girl on me it didn’t end up that way for you,” Tommy cautioned. “You tell her you’re leaving yourself.”

With that, Tommy got up and left the room.

____________________________

  
  


The trek home was a long one for Ellie and it gave her time to reflect on everything with Joel. More specifically everything from these past five years.

Completely ignoring him whenever he tried to talk to her or yelling at him for it. To her it didn’t matter, it wasn’t like he was dying tomorrow. That was the same thought process she had that night at the party.

He’s Joel, he’s looked death in the eye and flipped him off, he’s been around for 25 years in this world and he’ll be around for 25 more if his body holds up. Doesn’t matter, it’s not like he’s dying tomorrow. Only he almost did and the last thing she would’ve done is scolded him for just trying to help.

She wanted to forgive him, at least she wanted to try but there was so much shit they had to talk about and lots to get over. She didn’t know if she could do that but he could be gone any day and it was better she tried.

She turned the corner onto her street and began walking towards her house when she saw Jack on the front steps of his porch with a beer bottle in his hand. Normally she’d just keep walking home but fuck it she needed a drink.

She approached and he had his head down, looking at the bottle in his hands and he didn’t seem to notice her.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

He seemed to jump a little. When he looked at her he seemed surprised to see her seeing as nobody had seen her out of the hospital since Joel had been there. “Hey.”

“Mind if I had a drink?”

“Uh, sure,” he said, grabbing a bottle and handing her one as she took a seat next to him. “How’s the old man doing?”

“He’s awake now.”

“So, finally some good news,” he said, taking a sip of his beer.

“How many of those have you had?”

“Not enough,” he answered vaguely.

“You’ve got a problem buddy.”

“What you see as a problem I view as a solution.”

“I’ll be sure to tell your liver that.”

He gave her a small chuckle at that and sipped more from his bottle as she got to work on her’s. “How’d he look?”

For her he looked too close to death. One eye was _really fucked up_ as described so elegantly by the local doctor and they wouldn’t be able to tell if it would be okay until after a few weeks. His foot seemed to be healing up okay which was some good news for now. He’d have a few new scars to add to the collection once his stitches had been removed.

“He’s lookin’ alright,” she lied.

“You guys talk?”

“No,” she groaned. “Tommy needed to talk to him.”

“Sounds rough,” he said, turning his head to look at her, his hazel brown eyes staring into her’s. “That it?”

“No,” she admitted, it was difficult for her to talk about this and she had no idea why it was so easy with Jack. But Dina and Jesse always told her he was easy to express their problems to, especially when he had a bottle in his hands which was often. “You know what the last thing I said to him was?”

“What?”

“I told him I didn’t need his fucking help,” she almost cried. “If he’d died in that lodge that would’ve been his last fucking memory of me.”

“So don’t let it be,” he stated. “Look he obviously gives a fuck about you and as much as you’ve denied it you clearly give a fuck about him. I don’t know what the hell happened between you two but you owe it to yourself to at least talk to him.”

“There… you don’t know what it is but there’s a lot of shit to be hashed out.”

“So hash it,” he states as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You have time or maybe you don’t. He could die within days or he could die within years. There’s multiple variables at play in this shit world and when Joel’s eyes eventually shut forever I think you want his last memories of you to be fond ones.”

She sat there and mulled over his words. She doesn’t think she could ever forgive him for what he did and what he took away from her and the world but she’d like to try.

“What’s on your mind?”

“I just told you what’s on my mind you dipshit,” she snapped.

“No there’s something else,” he pried. “Something you’re not telling me.”

God he was good at reading people and she fucking hated it. Maybe he could’ve been a priest, seemed like he was the local guy for confessions.

“I feel like I’m needed somewhere else, or was needed. Someone, somewhere, right now, needs me but I can’t help them no matter who or where they are. But at the same time I’m here and I feel like I should be here. I feel like I’m still needed here too.” After she finished he just stared at her, studying her but she couldn’t tell how he felt about what she just said or what he was thinking. “Shit, too much?”

“Look… I don’t know why you think you could help people suffering out there and why you think you can’t. All I know is… we are where we’re needed and needed where we are.”

It didn’t make sense to her, what he said, but for some reason it brought some semblance of comfort.

“You are so wise,” she joked.

“Yes, I am drunk on alcohol and infinite wisdom.”

“Well then cheers to your wisdom.”

_Clink._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a separate outline I had for an alternate story Jack was a much more major character and played a sort of older brother role but that story idea was scrapped. But I figured I could give Ellie and Jack a scene because I kind of liked the relationship I developed for them in my other story.


	5. We've Walked This Road Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel gets ready to hit the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry about how bad the Dina/Ellie scenes I just don't ship them that much but thought it was only fair to include them a bit since I know a lot of people do.

She had a hell of a lot on her mind. After her talk with Jack she’d tried so many times to go in and talk to Joel and each and every time she’d shied away. Her relationship with Joel was already so strained that she was afraid that given the chance to talk to him her emotions would take over and she’d just end up making it all the more worse.

So she busied herself with more work and more wall duty, especially keeping an eye out for anybody around the walls. Jackson had become extremely cautious after the events of Joel’s attack. It was pretty much on complete lockdown. Patrols were short and there were very few. They only ran the most necessary routes to make sure there weren’t too many infected gathering in a horde.

But other than the few people who went on patrol nobody was to come in and nobody was to come out. If it was just some random survivors who’d attacked Joel they wouldn’t be as cautious but this was the goddamn WLF and they’d hunted him, she could tell by the way that woman took her time with Joel that this was something personal.

They couldn’t risk somebody being captured and used as leverage to lure Joel out of the city but they couldn’t just abandon patrols all together and leave Jackson vulnerable. They had no clue if that small squad of people was all they’d brought with them or if there could be an army on top of them within a matter of days and the uncertainty left the entire town in a state of constant vigilance and fear.

“Hey.” She saw Dina coming by to join her on the wall. “Jesse told me you’ve been up here since last night.”

“Yeah I know.”

Some awkward silence followed, seemed silence always followed whenever she tried to talk to someone these days.

“I heard Joel’s getting out of the hospital today.”

“Yeah I heard that too.”

Another silence _god this sucks_.

“You gonna go see him?” Dina asked.

“Maybe.”

“Yes or no?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie said, averting the question.

“Why not?”

_Seems like she’s not taking that for an answer._

“I mean… you’ve seen how we’ve been. I’m just scared that I might say something wrong and everything’s just gonna be worse.”

“Ellie,” she soothed, taking her hand. “I know it’s tough but you and I both know that there’s nothing you can say that would make him hate you.”

“I’m just…” she trailed off because she knows she’s scared, she didn’t have to repeat herself to know.

“Hey, I could come with you. But you’d have to go in and see him yourself,” Dina offered.

“Yeah… yeah maybe that would help.”

____________________________

  
  


Joel was far from feeling like himself, the wrapping around his left eye would be a constant reminder of that as well as the sting in his foot with every step.

“I’d advise you take it easy,” the doc said, standing in front of him as Joel sat up from his hospital bed to slip on his boots. “But I think we all know that easy isn’t your strong suit.”

“Don’t think anybody could be takin’ it easy right now,” he answered. Since he’d been bed ridden many people from the community had come to see him, even ones he barely remembered. It touched him that an entire town could grow to care about him this much. It hurt that Ellie hadn’t come to see him but it was probably for the best as it would only entertain his temptation of staying even more.

“That may be true but you have the most reason too.”

“I’d dare say I actually have the least reason,” he’d planned on leaving tonight. He’d discussed it with Tommy and he’d lend him one of the pickups to take on the road. It was just a matter of figuring out where the hell he was gonna go.

“Yes I’ve heard of your plans,” the doc said as Joel got up. He flinched slightly at the pain in his foot and figured he’d have to start getting used to it.

“Well then easy ain’t exactly an option.”

“I suppose not. But it never really is, is it? Just wishful thinking.”

Memories of late night talks with Tess back in Boston came flooding back all at once. Talks of settling down for a little bit and putting the smuggling business on hold. Sneaking away and doing nothing for a week or a month or however long they wanted. But of course everything got in the way and then her death came all too soon. After her death the only contentment he could conjure when he had memories of her were that she died by the bullet and not the bite.

“Always been wishful thinkin’,” Joel said.

As he exited the door the doctor spoke from behind him before he could shut it. “We will miss you.”

“Yeah,” Joel mumbled, lightly nodding his head. “I know.”

He left the hospital and headed towards Tommy’s home. He’d agreed to meet them there when he was out of bed so they could discuss his plans.

He didn’t bother knocking and just headed inside when he heard talking behind the door. He entered the house to see Maria and Tommy talking with a map spread across the table.

“Figure anything out?” Joel asked to announce himself as he made his way to join them.

“Maybe,” Maria answered.

“Yeah, maybe,” Tommy responded, motioning Joel to come stand beside him so he could see the map better. “You remember me telling you I went back home to Texas a few years back?”

“I do.”

“Well I never mentioned what we found when we took a look at the Dallas quarantine zone,” he stated, pointing to its location that he’d circled on the map. “It’s pretty much like Seattle. If you head there and prove your worth they’d probably be willing to take you in.”

“And what? The WLF is just gonna leave me alone?”

“It’s all we got Joel,” Maria said, raising her arms in the air before dropping them back to her sides. “It’s either this or spending the rest of your life on the road.”

It wasn’t preferable. He’d never heard of this Dallas militia which made him worrisome. Maybe they didn’t have a reputation and couldn’t hold against the WLF or maybe they tried to stay secret but it wasn’t like he had any better options.

“We got you some gear, a truck, and plenty of gas,” Tommy stated. “You can leave whenever you’re ready.”

“Alright well thank you, both of you,” he said, heading towards Maria to give her a hug. They’d never been all that close but there weren’t ill feelings between the two of them that there might’ve been a few years ago when he’d almost dumped Ellie on Tommy, kinda like what he was doing now. “I’m gonna get a bit of a rest then I’ll be on the road.”

He turned to leave but Tommy wasn’t letting him go just yet.

“Just hold on one second Joel,” he called after him. “You spoken to Ellie yet?”

Joel looked back at Tommy with a solemn look in his eyes. He opened his mouth but no words came out and he just turned to leave and stand on the porch, knowing his brother would follow anyways.

Joel leaned over the porch rail and Tommy came out to join him.

“So that’s a no.”

“Yep,” Joel said quietly.

“You goin’ to?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Joel,” Tommy said firmly. “You know that ain’t fai-”

“Yeah, I know it ain’t fair Tommy! Ain’t nothin’ fair. If everythin’ was fair I wouldn’t be leavin’.”

“That still ain’t an excuse I’m gonna accept!” Tommy snapped. “All them years and you can’t even give that girl the decency of a goodbye? The hell are you so afraid of?”

“I’m just… I’m afraid she’ll try and come with me.”

“No that ain’t it,” Tommy accused, he’d always been able to call Joel out on his bullshit and most of the time it really irked him. “You know it and I know it. You wanna tell me what it really is? Or am I gonna have to shoot another hole in your foot?”  
  


He shut his one good eye tight. He just wanted to scream at Tommy to piss off and stomp away, head home, and shut his door till he was ready to go but a different part of him said otherwise.

“I’m… I’m afraid Tommy,” he almost whispered.

“Yeah I got that part. Afraid of what exactly?”

“You’ve seen how me and her’ve been these past two years! Every time I’ve tried talkin’ to her she either yells at me or says nothin’ at all.”

“Joel, she ain’t gonna yell at you,” he assured and Joel wanted to believe him. “I told you she stayed by your side till you woke up and you still think she doesn’t give a damn? I thought you were dense big brother but this is taking it to a whole new level.”

He didn’t appreciate the insult behind it but he appreciated the sentiment.

“Alright Tommy,” he relented. “Alright I’ll talk to her.”

“Good,” Tommy said, pulling his brother in for a hug. “‘Cause I’m not letting you leave ‘til you do.”

Joel started down that familiar road to the house he used to live in with Ellie. He’d had to find a new one after their fight but his new place never really felt like home. No place would feel like home without Ellie and he supposed he’d have to get used to that feeling now.

He made his way into the back to Ellie’s room and knocked on the door.

“Just hang on a second!” Ellie yelled from the other side, he could hear some sort of rustling on the other side of the door.

“Ellie it’s me,” he said, the noise behind the door stopped and soon after he saw her open it. She looked tired, there were visible bags under her eyes and he hoped he wasn’t responsible for that.

“Uh, hey Joel,” she said awkwardly.

“Hey,” he said, just as awkwardly. “You mind if I…” he trailed off, motioning with his hand to the inside of the room.

“Yeah, totally,” she said, moving aside so Joel could walk through the door. “So… what’s up?”

“I just… wanted to talk to you but I wasn’t quite sure if that’s what you wanted.”

She nodded slightly at that and averted her eyes to the ground. Maybe at this point she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to talk or not.

“How’s your eye?” She asked, pointing to the bandages still wrapped around his head.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” he wasn’t sure at all but that wasn’t what he was here for.

“Does it hurt?”

“Only a little.”

He always hated these silences between sentences. It made the air around them more tense no matter who he was talking to and he didn’t know how to lead into what he came here to talk about.

“So what’d you come to talk about?”

_That makes things a bit easier._

“I um… I came to say goodbye,” he stated.

She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and crossed her arms. “What do you mean goodbye?”

“I’m leavin’ kiddo. These people are after me and I can’t stay here. It’s dangerous for all these people.”

“Wh- Joel you can’t just leave m-”

“Before you even finish that,” he interrupted, she could probably convince him to let her join him or hell if she tried hard enough she could convince him to stay. So he couldn’t let her. “I’m leavin’ because I… I _care_ a lot about you Ellie, you know that, and I care a lot about these people. Everything I have done since the day I’ve met you I’ve done to protect you. That’s what I’m doing now.”

He expected more protests but they didn’t come, she simply nodded and turned around to sit in her chair. She’d completely turned her back to him and just stared at her desk. He wanted to say sorry and tell her to come with him but he couldn’t do that to her, it wouldn’t be fair.

“Ellie,” he sighed to no response. “Ellie don’t,” once again he was met with her back and silence. He turned and headed for the door, opening it and hesitating before closing. “Goodbye baby girl,” he said it so quietly he wasn’t sure she heard him but she didn’t seem to react. He closed the door and headed home to get some sleep before leaving in the evening.

Evening fell and the sunrise glowed over the top of the walls of Jackson. The snow on the ground glimmered and the kids continued to build forts and tear them down in snowball fights. He envied their childlike innocence. He hoped they could enjoy it while they could because childlike joy only lasted so long. That’s at least one thing that this world hasn’t changed.

Joel had his guitar on his back and his revolver holstered.

Tommy was leaning on the hood of the black pickup he had ready for Joel. Next to it was a backpack with a rifle and a shotgun and enough supplies for him to make it a few weeks before he’d be scrounging on his own.

“You got your revolver?” Tommy asked as Joel approached him to which he patted the back of his pants where he always kept it safely holstered. “This ain’t gonna be easy.”

“I wouldn’t expect it to be,” Joel said as Tommy passed him the keys.

“Maybe we’ll come and visit you someday once all this is behind us,” Tommy said hopefully.

“It won’t ever be behind us Tommy,” Joel sighed.

“Yeah, I know,” Tommy mumbled.

Joel slung the backpack around his shoulders. _This is really it._ “When I get there how do I approach them?”

“Same way I did when they caught us. Hands in the air, let them take your guns and explain yourself. Don’t forget to pray to the lord that they don’t kill you.”

“I don’t think the lord’s too fond of me at this point.”

“Well ain’t he all about forgiveness?”

“I think I’m past that.” He patted Tommy on the shoulder and unlocked the car door, throwing his guitar into the back seat. He turned the key and the engine roared to life.

“Open her up!” Tommy yelled to the people up on the wall. 

As the gates opened they all seemed to be waving goodbye to Joel as he was getting ready to leave. But as he was about to press down on the gas pedal the passenger door opened and someone sat down in the passenger seat.

His head whipped to his right to see it was Ellie with her backpack on the floor between her legs and her walkman in her lap. He sat there staring, not quite sure what was happening.

Eventually Ellie noticed and turned her attention to him. “We gonna go?”

“What’re you doin’?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Ellie I told you that you’re staying,” he commanded with little authority because if he was being honest with himself he didn’t want to leave her here.

“Well I thought I told you,” she said, with what seemed like a slight smile on her lips. “We stick together.” Joel turned to Tommy who could see the whole thing from outside the truck. But he just shrugged as if he expected it. _Bastard._ He turned to look at Ellie who was waiting expectantly. “So are we going?”

_Last chance to tell her no. Five, four, three, two, one… no._ He started moving the truck forward when he heard someone call Ellie’s name. “Ellie!”

“Oh shit.” Ellie unlocked the door and hopped out the car. “Hold on.” It was Dina and she ran right up to Ellie, holding her tight. He could’ve easily driven away now with her outside the car and left her here in Jackson. But he didn’t, he waited for her.

“Guess this is it huh?” Dina was still holding Ellie and seemed to be holding back tears.

“Yeah, guess so.”

“If only we had more time.” She pulled away and smiled at Ellie and averted her eyes to Joel waiting in the car. “You two take care of each other.”

“We’ll try.”

“Who knows, maybe we’ll see each other again one day?” Dina asked hopefully.

“Doubt it,” Ellie laughed with little humour behind it, in fact it seemed sad.

“Well like I said, who knows.”

There was a pause and Joel turned his head and was just able to miss seeing their kiss goodbye. He’d rather Ellie didn’t kiss people in front of him as it just felt awkward but he was willing to let this one slide.

Ellie turned and sat back in the passenger seat.

“Last chance kiddo. You wanna stay?” He didn’t wanna ask but he felt obligated. In response she simply fastened her seatbelt and they drove out of the gates and out into the world to leave behind this life they’d built forever. She seemed to feel something on her back, it was a sticky note. He assumed Dina slipped it onto her back. His hearing had become so finely tuned over the years that he could easily hear what she read under her breath.

“Raincheck on that rematch. Jack.”

____________________________

  
  


“Either we’re cornering a patrol and holding them hostage or I’m going down there and killing that entire fucking town until they hand him over!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? The people in that town have nothing to do with this!” Abby and Mike were having another explosive argument about how they were gonna handle the Jackson situation. They’d been camped here since they’d retired from the lodge. It was a good location, it was hidden by the tree line and had a small ledge they could hide under in case infected or other people showed up. Also it was in an area that seemed to not be patrolled at the moment.

“Holding somebody hostage doesn’t sound like a terrible idea,” Nora weighed in.

“It doesn’t but it’s the fact that this piece of shit even suggested attacking the whole town!”

“I’m sorry but aren’t you the one who started this whole mission in the first place?” Mike had been at Abby’s throat ever since that night at the lodge and she was on the verge of crushing his skull at this point.

“I am.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you finish it when you had the chance. If you’d just swung the goddamn club we’d be on our way home by now and I wouldn’t have a fucking bullet wound in my shoulder!” He yelled. A tiny part of her felt bad about that because that arm of his had been bad for a while but she never knew what he did to it to mess it up. For the most part she didn't care.

He snapped up to his feet and stalked closer and closer to her. “If you hesitate again-”

“I won’t-”

“But if you do. Then I’m gonna have to kill him myself… then maybe you’ll be next.”

She couldn’t hold back like she had the entire time she’d known him and she clocked him, _hard,_ right across the jaw.

“Jesus Abby!” Mel said as she and Manny came over to make sure it didn’t go any further.

“You know he didn’t mean that,” Manny said. “He’s just a hothead.”

“Oh please don’t worry about me,” Mike laughed. “I mean we all know Abby can’t finish what she starts.”

At that Abby tried to charge at Mike again, growling in anger and it took both Manny and Mel to hold her back. At least Abby could take satisfaction in seeing Mike now had a busted lip.

“Can you two stop arguing for five seconds!” Owen scolded them as he returned from his scouting position.

Immediately Abby’s body relaxed and Mike seemed to do the same as they both turned their attention to what Owen had to say. “You got anything?” She asked.

“Yeah, and it’s not good. Joel left.”

“He left?” Mike gritted through his teeth.

“Yeah, in a pickup and it looks like he’s headed south.”

“Alright that’s it.” Mike grabbed one of the nearby rifles and started heading in the direction of Jackson.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, the hell do you think you’re doing?” Owen said as he stepped in his way.

“I’m gonna head down there.”

“He left dipshit, are you dense? Or do you need me to knock some more sense into you?” Abby growled.

“Well maybe his brother knows where he’s headed. No way he’s just out on the road with no idea where he’s going so I’m gonna find his brother and make him tell me where.”

He tried to move past him again but Owen shoved him back aggressively, the rifle in Mike’s hands didn’t intimidate him. “You pull some shit like that then maybe I’ll just have to talk to Isaac when we get home.”

That made Mike freeze up. “Owen…”

“He’s the one who said we’re not supposed to kill anyone unless we need to. We can’t be starting anymore unnecessary conflicts, we already have the Scars to deal with back home!”

“This is necessary, we need to know where he’s going!” Mike argued.

“We will,” Owen assured him. “Manny, you think you can pick up his trail?”

“You said he was in a pickup?” Owen nodded. “Easy.”

Owen lifted his arms in the air and raised his eyebrows at Mike. “See, there we go.”

Mike threw the rifle away out of frustration and sat down on a log they’d set up for rest. “Fine.”

“Good,” Owen moved over to Manny to give him instructions. “We’re leaving at dawn. Everybody get some rest, especially you Mel. Mike, you and I are taking first watch, we need to have a chat.”

Owen and Mike both headed off to their position where they could watch for any infected or people. Abby went to sleep determined that no matter what she wouldn’t hesitate next time because no matter how much she fought Mike on it his words cut deep. She couldn’t fail this time, she wouldn’t fail.

  
  



	6. Restlessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Joel take a short stop for some rest on the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a struggle I'm not gonna lie. Also just completed both campaigns for Resident Evil 2. Strongly recommend it. (Btw I'm tired so there may be spelling mistakes I'm not sure.)

Not a word had been spoken since they’d started driving. Ellie kept her headphones in and her eyes trained on her window. Joel just tried to focus on the road but couldn’t with her sitting right there and with all this unsolved shit between them.

It would’ve helped if they’d come across some infected. He needed an excuse to get out of the car for a second to just stop thinking and do something else.

They’d been driving all night and day to gain enough distance, maybe he could at least let Ellie sleep for a couple hours before morning.

The second he saw a sign that signified a city he took a turn to find a nearby house they could haul up in.

Ellie didn’t react to the change in course and just continued staring out the window with her cheek in her palm. It was a surprise that she even wanted to come with him but there was still so much they needed to get off their chests before they could really be okay. But at least now maybe she’d be willing to give him the time to try and make things right.

He drove a little ways into town until he found a house with a garage so they could stash the truck out of sight. He looked over at Ellie and saw that she’d actually fallen asleep at the window, her legs were tucked up onto the chair and Joel couldn’t help but smile at least a little bit. He briefly thought he should carry her inside so she didn’t have to wake up but thought better of it and instead opted to slightly shake her until she roused.

“Ellie,” he whispered, her eyes fluttered open and she removed her headphones and turned her head to give him some attention. “We have a bit of time, we can rest for a few hours and check for some supplies in the house but we gotta keep movin’ soon.”

She simply nodded and opened the door but not before taking a quick glance at his bandaged eye. He really wished she’d stop drawing attention to it because he was trying to forget about it himself. Of course it was hard to forget having one of your being currently blinded. It was a huge weakness, his shooting would be off and he couldn’t catch things out of the corner of that eye anymore. His ability to fight would most likely be hindered too. He’d have to rely on her more than he’d like to.

He got out of the car and entered the house. The door from the garage led right into the entryway of the house, he moved into the kitchen and shuffled through all the drawers but found nothing. Ellie came down the stairs with her pistol in hand. “Find anything?” He asked.

“There was an infected upstairs, nothing else.”  
  


“Alright, let’s get a little rest, we're outta here in two hours.”

She nodded and headed towards a couch in the living room, flopping down onto it and quickly falling back to sleep. Joel slid down a nearby wall and sat down against it and closed his eyes to at least try to get to sleep even though he’d be lucky for just one minute.

____________________________

They were camped out by an old abandoned farm to hide the fire and the vehicles from any possible cars that would pass the road. Everybody else was asleep except for Jordan and Mike who were out patrolling the perimeter.

Even though she was supposed to be asleep right now she could barely keep her eyes closed for more than a few seconds because all she could think of was this old man who’d completely sent her life into this spiral. If she’d finished the job in the lodge they’d be back in Seattle fighting against the Scars instead of this other battle. She should’ve finished the job and she would’ve had it not been for that girl’s begging.

She understood the fear she felt, she knew exactly how that girl was feeling in that moment and how she would’ve felt afterwards and that’s what made her stop, it wasn’t anything to do with Joel. If that girl hadn’t shown up she surely would’ve finished him but of course she showed weakness for a second and it cost her another friend. She knew Mike wanted a slow and painful death for him and deep down she was sure that’s what she wanted too. But she couldn’t risk it this time. It was best to just shoot him and get it over with.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” She looked up to see Mike entering the barn.

“Shouldn’t you be on patrol?” She gritted through her teeth, she was still bitter about their countless fights while they scouted Jackson.

“Nora’s supposed to take over for me now.” As he said that he nudged Nora’s sleeping bag with his foot to get her to rouse. “You’re up.”

Nora groaned but got up anyways and grabbed a rifle before leaving the barn and left just the two of them as the only people left awake inside.

“Mind if I sit?” He asked.

“I do mind.” But like an asshole he sat down anyways.

“Look I know you’re a little ticked at me-”

“That’s a pretty big understatement.”

“So I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

That surprised her big time. Not because he apologized because she in fact expected him to. What surprised her was it wasn’t completely half-assed but seemed a little bit genuine.

“Well, I’m sorry too.” And she was. She might’ve been the one to do the research and start them on this journey but he’d been the most eager to join her. She’d lost a lot to Joel but he had too and that was one thing she could be empathetic about with him.

“Yeah,” he said, looking down at the fire. _Back to being a dick._ “That girl-”

“Won’t be a problem, trust me.” She said it so convincingly that she almost believed it herself.

He looked up from the fire and into hers, the flames illuminating his face and casting it in a bright angry orange. The colour was in complete contrast to how he looked on the outside but she knew inside all he was was fire and anger. “Sure,” he said. “Owen said he saw her in the truck with him.”

“I know.”

There was a brief silence between them and she knew he was having the same thoughts as she was.

“You don’t think she’s…” Mike trailed off into silence.

“I’ve never seen her before and he said he had a daughter.”

“He also said his name was John and that he was just passing through.”

“Even then what use would she be to us! We can’t make a cure without…” She couldn’t even finish that sentence, it was all just too painful. It hurt Mike just as much. Hell she dare say it probably hurt him even more than her to think about that day.

“Yeah well… just a thought.” He laid down on the ground and pulled a blanket over himself. “I’m gonna try to get in a few minutes before we head out again.”

“Mm-hm.” She should probably sleep too but this journey was becoming taxing on her in more ways than one. She hoped that maybe she’d sleep soundly once everything was all set and done.

____________________________

Picking away at the guitar always soothed him. It soothed him when they’d first arrived in Jackson, when Ellie discovered the truth, and after their fight at the party. It was his kind of drinking and forgetting although he’d done plenty of that in the past.

He’d maybe had five minutes of sleep if he was lucky before he was up and in the truck and playing a random tune while Ellie got some proper rest on the couch.

He was tired but his eyes couldn’t manage to stay shut. They were always shooting open at every noise wondering if they’d been found or if a bloater was about to burst through the wall. He wouldn’t worry about it if he was on his own because fuck it, he’s lived a long life, longer than he expected anyhow. But he’s not on his own, he’s on the road with her _again_ and he feels this need to protect her _again._ All those years back he could go a week without sleeping but now he’s old and out of practice. Back then he could strangle a room full of seven soldiers or infected and make it out with nobody noticing a thing. Because five years back his hair was less gray and he had both fucking eyes. Now who knows, maybe three infected could do him in, maybe one.

He stopped strumming and groaned because not even the guitar was helping. He was gonna save the bottles of whiskey for an emergency but maybe a small drink wouldn’t hurt.

He took out one of the bottles and took it to the kitchen to hopefully find a glass. Conveniently for him it seemed the glasses had remained largely untouched and he was able to pick one out, wipe the inside a bit, and pour himself a glass. Midway through his first sip he heard Ellie’s footsteps as she made her way into the kitchen. She paused briefly when she saw him and leaned on the doorframe. He followed her eyes to the glass cabinet, then to the bottle. She didn’t look to him for permission but rather made a beeline straight for the glass then the bottle to pour some for herself. He’d noticed she’d started drinking. He didn’t approve of it but who was he to tell her no, it wasn’t like he’d be able to get through to her.

When she was satisfied with the amount in her glass she leaned back on the counter next to Joel and they drank in silence. At least for a little bit.

“When was the last time you were in Texas?” She asked, seemingly trying to initiate some small talk.

“Um… not since me and Tommy left for Boston.” And that was 24 years ago. Tommy had been back, said it looked like almost everywhere else but it would be hard to see so many things he knew now overgrown and destroyed.

“Gonna be weird returning home, huh?”

“No, just another city.” He took a sip from his glass. It was a lie, she probably knew, yet for some reason he couldn’t stop lying to her no matter what and it grated on him, it really did.

There was another pause before she spoke up again. “You got any idea why those people are after us?”

“No clue.” Half-lie. He had a general idea, they were clearly trained by the way they handled the infected, the WLF were a well known militia that he had no prior history with but he had plenty of history with the Fireflies. It wasn’t hard to put it together and it was evident that it wasn’t hard for Ellie. She knew it wasn’t hard for Joel either and that seemingly pissed her off.

Her hand started clenching around her glass and Joel couldn’t stop her before it smashed into pieces in her hand.

“When are you gonna stop fucking lying to me, Joel?” She yelled. He gave her a neutral stare, she needed this and he deserved it. “You know damn well why they’re after us and you know this all could’ve been avoided if you’d just let me die in that hospital! If you just did your job and gave everyone a cure so that my life would’ve fucking mattered!”

He stopped leaning on the counter and stood up straighter now. “If the lord somehow gave me a second chance at that moment… I would do it all over again.” And he meant it. If he had to do it again even if all he had were his fists or a brick he would get through that hospital and save her at any cost. “Y’know I’d burn the world down for you, right?”

“I know, Joel,” she mumbled. “Just maybe that’s the problem.”

He nodded, because maybe it was. He heard her hiss in pain and his eyes shot up to her hand. He’d been so wrapped up in their conversation that he’d completely forgotten she’d crushed the bottle in her hand and now blood was dripping on to the floor.

“Oh Christ, Ellie your goddamn hand!” He scolded, grabbing her wrist to get a closer look at the cut.

“It’s nothing.”

“It ain’t nothin’. Wait here.” He left the kitchen and made his way over to the truck to grab some bandages Tommy had packed for him. He came back to the kitchen and immediately started working on Ellie’s hand. “We should be savin’ these.”

“Yeah, well we should also be saving the whiskey.”

“Just don’t make a habit of cuttin’ yourself.”

“I don’t plan on it,” she hissed again when he wrapped it tighter around her hand. It should be fine, it’s nothing worse than anything she experienced on the road before. “Y’know you’re worrying about a little cut on my hand when you’ve got your entire eye.”

He didn’t respond at first and instead elected to keep checking her hand to make sure it wasn’t still bleeding too much. “Stop talkin’ about my eye.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s fine.” He growled.

“It’s not fine! Let’s just take off the bandages and see how it’s looking!”

“Ellie!” He yelled at the top of his lungs. “It. Is. Fine.”

She seemed shocked, probably because he hadn’t yelled at her in a while but then again he didn’t yell at her all that much before.

“Okay, okay. Sorry I brought it up.”

His brief spurt of anger quickly dissipated and he realized he was being angry for nothing, she was only trying to look out for him as he was her. “No, no. I’m sorry I shouldn’t’ve been like that.”

“Yeah.” She replied. “But it’s cool. I won’t talk about _it._ ”

“Thank you,” he said quietly, he didn’t know why he didn’t want to talk about his eye but he just didn’t and that was all he needed to know. “I think we should get back on the road. We’ve already been here too long.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

They moved away from each other, Joel headed to the garage and she went to get her backpack from the living room. He got the car running and as he sat in the front seat he almost fell asleep on the wheel repeatedly until Ellie got in the passenger seat. He got the truck back on the road and driving kept him awake for a few minutes at least before he started dozing off at the wheel.

“Joel,” Ellie spoke softly, shaking his arm. “You’re too tired.”

“I ain’t tired.”

“Yes you are.”

“Ellie-”

“Joel, you know I can drive. Let me take the wheel for a little bit while you get some rest in the backseat.”

“Ellie, really it’s okay.”

“It’s not Joel please,” she begged. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“I do.” He didn’t hesitate to answer that.

“Then get some rest."

He drove maybe a few more feet before Joel relented and pulled the car over and let her take the wheel. He exited the car and headed to the back while Ellie hopped into the driver seat. He tried to get comfortable in the back but he couldn’t, he couldn’t sleep. He was tired and he needed sleep but he couldn’t drift off no matter how hard he tried. 

He didn’t toss and turn, he just laid still which must’ve given the impression to Ellie that he was asleep because she started talking to herself, well rather to him but they weren’t things she’d say if he were awake.

“You asleep yet?” She asked. He didn’t respond and laid still. “Well that’s good. You need it.” She took a deep breath before talking again. “I hope you don’t think I hate you because I don’t. Maybe I should, it feels like I should… part of me hates myself for not being able to hate you. Even after learning the truth I didn’t hate you no matter how hard I tried.” He tried not to open his eyes or let tears leak out. He swore he really was asleep and this was some twisted dream. “After we got you back to Jackson I guess I realized how stupid I’ve been. I can’t leave things the way they are after that. I don’t know why I’m not telling you all these things when you’re awake. Maybe I still wanna pretend I hate you… maybe it’s because I don’t know if I can really forgive you.” He couldn’t help it, one lone tear trickled down his cheek. “But I would like to try.” She sniffled.

The next breath he released was shaky and she took notice of it, realizing he was awake. She looked with her eyes wide in the rearview mirror and he looked right back at her.

“I’d like that.”

She nodded slightly and looked back to the road. “Well… try to get some more sleep. We got a few more hours before the next town.”

He shut his eyes and this time he drifted to sleep a bit easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote Ellie and Joel's conversation a lot and I'm not sure I even like the final product. But hopefully you guys did.


	7. Hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Joel are forced to head into a town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GTA 4 is next on my list of games to play during quarantine. Idk what's next. Maybe The Last Guardian? I could play the first two Bioshock Games.

The truck bumped along the uncared for road and made it difficult to drive on and difficult to stay comfortable. Owen had the wheel and she sat in the front where she was supposed to be sleeping even though her eyes were wide open. Owen was quick to remind her.

“Could you try to get some sleep?” Owen asked from the driver's seat.

“I have tried.”

“Well… try harder?”

“Look, Owen I’m just not tired.”

“Alright fine. I just hope you’ll be tired soon.”

“Same here.” Maybe she’d be able to sleep better once this was all set and done. But as of right now she was awake and not tired in the slightest.

It’d been two weeks by now since they’d left Wyoming, hot on Joel’s trail and for two weeks and yet Owen had been driving most of the time even though she was the only person who couldn’t get any sleep around here.

“You think Jordan’s been handling himself alright?” Owen asked.

“Yeah, he’s still got a bit of work ahead of him but he’s got potential.”

“Maybe this trip will be good for him.”

“Yeah, maybe.” There was a pause before she spoke again, the wheels bumping on the cracks on the road and the sound of the engine filling the temporary silence. “How do you think everybody else is?”

“I think everybody’s about ready to get this done and over with. We’re getting homesick.”

“Some of us are…” She wasn’t homesick, Seattle never felt like home. While everyone else missed home she knew someone who didn’t. “Mike seem like he’s doing okay to you?”

Owen exhaled as he thought about what to say about Mike. “He’s always been a loose cannon but… I’m afraid all this might really set him off.”

“Isaac was good at keeping it contained. I don’t think we can do as well without him.”

“You wish we brought him along?” Owen asked, surprised.

“No but… I do miss some aspects of him.” She never really took kindly to the WLF leader’s ruthlessness. The stories of how he took the zone were enough for her to not like him. But she couldn’t deny his efficiency and ability to command respect, even from Mike. “Maybe Mike’ll lighten up once we’re done.”

“Well here’s hoping.”  
  


Things wouldn’t be better. They were all broken pieces of an incomplete puzzle but maybe there would be that small bit of satisfaction in knowing that Joel was _finally_ dead.

____________________________

“Son of a bitch!”

Joel’s yelling made Ellie jolt up, ready to fight. “What’s going on?”

“Somethin’ wrong with the engine.”

“I thought Tommy gave us a good truck.”

“He did,” Joel said, pulling over to the side of the highway. “We’re lucky we even got a car.”

Once the car came to a stop Joel exited and popped the hood. Ellie joined him, taking a look inside. “Is it bad?”

“Nah. I’ll have us back on the road soon enough.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No, you relax. I’ll handle this.”  
  


Ellie headed to the back of the truck and pulled down the tailgate and hopped on. She sat there swinging her legs back and forth, it was a little habit of her’s. Things had been a bit better since she blew up at Joel in the house and let it all out. He also seemed a bit different, like maybe he was trying to be better. She was surprised when she heard he voluntarily went to save Abby. Shame the one time he was a decent person he was almost killed.

Joel was taking a little bit and she had nothing better to do so she hopped off the back and grabbed the guitar from the backseat.

Once she was back on the tailgate with the wooden instrument placed comfortably in her lap she began lightly strumming each string to check if it was in tune. These strings were old as new ones were rare to come by. She wondered how much that affected the sound and if brand new strings would make it sound any better.

She strummed mindlessly with no tune in particular. It was a habit she’d seemingly picked up from Joel, she’d noticed him doing it before whenever he needed to calm down or just wanted to feel some peace. She understood it, it did make her feel peaceful.

_e chord, f chord, e, d, c, g, a, c, g, a, c, a, g, e..._

The tune felt so familiar on her fingers, something she wouldn’t forget. Playing it felt as natural as shooting a gun or running or simply breathing at this point.

“If I ever were to lose you,” she sang quietly to herself, quiet enough that Joel wouldn’t hear. “I’d surely lose myself.”

She sighed, her strumming coming to a halt. It’d been a long time since she’d played that song at all, she probably hadn’t played it at all in two years or so. It felt good to play it a bit even if she couldn’t remember the entire song.

She just saw Joel out of the corner of her eye coming to stand beside her.

“We good to go?” She asked.

“Yes we are.”

She nodded, hopping off and getting back into the front seat. At least now the snow was letting up seeing as they were getting further south. Maybe they would beat the WLF to Dallas afterall.

They had a decent lead, the distance between them wasn’t comfortable but it was enough that at the pace they’re on they should be able to keep ahead of them.

She feels a large yawn making its way up her throat, she tries to stifle it because _Christ_ has she been tired and it’s been getting really annoying. She’s gotten way more sleep than Joel, mostly because he’s been really anal about it. Only time he let her drive was the first time they ended up stopping at that house.

Other than that every time she’s offered it’s always _I’ll drive_ and _you just make sure you’re rested up_. She appreciates that he wants to take care of her but it’s really starting to get annoying.

The yawn eventually escapes despite her best efforts. She ends up closing her eyes because of it and it’s mainly her fault for not just letting it out. It’s why she’s not prepared when Joel suddenly slams on the brakes and she jerks forward, luckily she was wearing her seatbelt.

“Whoa, easy!” She looks at him as he slaps his hand on the steering wheel in frustration. She looks forward and sees a bridge in front of them over some ravine, a bridge that collapsed a long time ago. She starts looking around for other solutions, seeing a town they could cut through if they take the diverging road. “Hey, we could cut through that town.”

“I know,” he grunts. “That’s exactly what I wanted to avoid.”

“Well maybe we could find some more stuff?” She suggests, trying to seem optimistic but ultimately she doesn’t want to head into town either.

“It ain’t worth it.”

“Well we’ve got no other way forward.” Any other path they could take around the town was blocked off my broken blocks of cement, old rusted car frames, tall grass, and trees. All would end up fucking their car pretty bad. “We can handle it.”

He sits there mumbling to himself, probably trying to come up with an argument. Eventually his mumbling ceases and he puts the car in reverse and turns to head into the foreboding town. It was the last one out of Colorado apparently but the sign that had the town’s name had been blurred.

The second they got into town Ellie’s suggestion about retrieving more supplies was completely abandoned, as she looked at the buildings she immediately knew that she wanted nothing to do with them. She could already hear the screeches of infected in most of them and other ones seemed too quiet for them to be safe. Joel drove through the town slowly and quietly as to not alert any infected to their presence.

There were bodies on the street, already old and decayed, only bones now. She never got used to the cracks when they drove over them. She tried to just tune it out when she was younger but she was so used to seeing them by now that it barely phased her. _Barely._

“You think anybody’s been through here lately?” She asked.

“By the looks of things anyone who has is probably dead.”

_Better hope we’re not next._

They kept driving, careful to be slow and not attract any attention. “Man, I really wish this truck took tapes. Bonnie found a bunch of new ones not too long ago, you’d probably like them.”

He made a noise, sounded like a _hmph._ “Bet I would’ve.”

“Well hey, when we get settled in Dallas we could try and find a boombox or something.”

“Heh, you think they’ll have a working boombox? We didn’t even have a working boombox.”

“Well they’re probably better supplied.”

“Yeah they probably are,” he agreed. “What kinda songs did you find anyway?”

“Well…” she said, ruffling through her bag. She had a lot of tapes back home but she had to leave most of them. She mainly left the ones she’d listened to the most already. “You know Johnny Cash?”

“Umm… yeah. Listened to a few of his songs. I liked what I heard.”

“Well I got a lot of his stuff. Seemed like songs you would like.”

“Okay, next chance we get I’ll give a few of em’ a listen. Anything else?”

“Eh, there were a lot by boy bands. I just took those because they were free tapes.”

“Uh-huh,” he said sarcastically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you like boyband music more than you let on.”

“No I don’t!”

“Sure.”

“I don’t!” She laughed.

“You bring any with you?”

“Well… like a few.”

“Oh did you now?”

“Just ones I haven’t listened to! I don’t know if there might be a good song in there!”

“Okay sure.”

“Joel, I’m serious.” She wanted to seem angry but she couldn’t hide her smile.

“Oh don’t worry I believe you.” He didn’t sound convincing at all.

“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes, flopping back into her chair. “You suck.”

“Heh, yeah I know.”

She smiled though, it was getting easier to talk to him now that they’d released a bit of the tension back in that house. She was slowly warming back up to him, trying to at least. Like Jack said she couldn’t just leave things the way they were after she’d almost lost him and even if she couldn’t forgive him, she was gonna try to at least understand and maybe live with it. 

Joel was back to listening for any signs of danger and she was too. They didn’t see or hear anything that would warrant them to speed off, not until… _shit._

They turned a corner and she knew right then and there that this was the end of the line. The street was completely filled to the brim with infected. Runners, clickers, and a fucking bloater out in the open. Joel tried to back up but it was no use. They’d seen them, the runners’ screams had alerted any infected that had been standing idle and now the giant horde of them was charging.

“Shit, hold on!” Joel screamed, whipping the car around as he drove away down a street, they were faster in a car but they had a lot more to maneuver around compared to who was chasing them. Joel drove as fast as he could while moving around cars and old barricades. She was too stressed to notice the runner charging at them from the side. It bursted through the window grabbing onto Ellie and trying to pull her closer. She struggled and screamed, fighting with all she had to wrestle it off before Joel’s gun went off and the runner’s body went limp and fell onto the road. Her ears were ringing but she’d rather that then be dead. Thank god Joel’s right eye was still okay otherwise she’d probably have another bite mark to worry about.

All the noise attracted something else, a bloater, it bursted through the wall of some old restaurant and into the open streets, right in front of them. She saw it grab one of its sacks, winding back to launch it right at the windshield. “Watch out!”

They couldn’t avoid it. The sack collided with the windshield, spreading the toxin and effectively blinding them. Joel tried to keep control of the truck but his efforts were futile. She felt the collision and it hurt. The car crashed into a pole hard and wasn’t starting back up. “Screw it, get out!” Joel yelled.

He didn’t need to tell her twice, she was out in a flash and dove behind a barricade. “Toss me the whisky!” She commanded. Joel reached into his backpack, sending it to her as she pulled out a lighter and tossed the molotov at the bloater. It wouldn’t be enough to kill it but it should buy them enough time to run.

“Go, go, go!” They got moving as they saw the horde getting closer and closer, runners and clickers started bursting through windows and into the streets and they were almost completely surrounded. This was it, she might be immune to infection but she wasn’t immune to being torn to shreds. They got behind a barricade and started shooting. She hit most of her targets, Joel hit barely any.

_Who were we kidding. How were we supposed to make a trip like this a second time._

She shoots one more clicker with her rifle as it gets too close and she’s just able to pick up the sound of a clanging pipe. She looks to her right, sees a boy. He was young, thin eyed, short hair. He was standing under a service door and motioned for them to come. Why he didn’t just yell was beyond her but it didn’t matter to her because they had a way to escape.

“Joel!” She yelled, grabbing his arm. “C’mon!” He quickly noticed the boy as well and they ran for the door, sliding under it and helped the kid quickly shut it. The infected were close behind and were already banging on the other side of the door.

“Hey!” A woman yelled from behind them. “The hell did I tell you! You weren’t supposed to open that door under any circumstance.”

The boy simply motioned towards her and Joel and they both looked dumbstruck. She felt especially bad for Joel because this woman… she looked exactly like Tess.

She was maybe a bit thinner but not much, her hair was slightly darker and her eyes were green as opposed to the hazel eyes Tess had. But other than that the resemblance was almost uncanny.

“It doesn’t matter,” the woman scolded the boy. “You’ve gotta listen to me.” She didn’t share the same accent as Tess either. She sounded more like Maria than Tess. The boy still didn’t say anything just lifted his arms in the air in exasperation and turned around.

The rather large bang on the other side of the door and a deep growl told them that they didn’t have much time.

“It doesn’t matter, we’re here now,” Joel said. “And we gotta move.”

The woman nodded. “Then follow me. But you two better move quickly.”

They followed her up a staircase, as they made it to the top the infected all bursted through the door at once and started running at them up the stairs. “Shut the door!” The woman commanded. “Umm… here help me with this!” Joel moved beside her, helping her move a shelf in front of the door.

“That’s not gonna hold!” Ellie stated.

“Yeah, that’s why we gotta be fast! Now come on!”

They followed her, the infected right on their tail once they’d busted through the door. They hopped out a window, and onto a roof. Right in front of them was another window which they quickly sprinted for and each hopped through one at a time. “Up the stairs!” She yelled. They both followed suit. The stairs led up to the roof where there was a ladder leading up to a part of the roof that would’ve been otherwise unreachable. “Up the ladder! Quickly!”

The boy was first, followed by Ellie, then the woman. Joel was last and the infected had grabbed onto his foot, trying to pull him down. A gunshot rang out from the woman’s pistol and she helped pull Joel up onto the roof, kicking down the ladder once everyone was okay.

“Holy shit,” Ellie wheezed. She hadn’t needed to run that fast in a long time. She looked down at the infected gathered down below. They started calming down but something told her that they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. “Guess we’re stuck up here.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” The woman said bitterly. She probably reminded Joel of Tess in more ways than one.

“Sorry,” Ellie replied. She turned to the boy who still hadn’t spoken a word since she’d met him, he seemed to be maybe fifteen, around the same age she’d been when she left Boston with Joel. She held out her hand because he seemed to be the friendlier of the two. “Hey, I’m Ellie. You got a name?”

“Oh that’s Levi.” The woman answered without looking at her but instead looking over the ledge, probably trying to find another way off the roof. “Don’t bother asking him his name, he’s mute." She looked at Levi surprised but it made sense seeing as he didn’t yell for them or argue verbally when the woman was yelling at him. “I’m Sasha by the way. Looks like we’re stuck together for now.”

“Johnathan,” Joel said, holding out his hand and she reluctantly took it.

Ellie frowned at him. _Really? They saved our lives and you can’t even give them your name?_

But he just frowned back and she realized she couldn’t really argue with him. After all, someone recognizing him is the exact reason why they were in this situation.

“Pleasure,” she said, even though her face didn’t seem to show that it was.

“I’m sure,” he replied.

“Well, you have any ideas on how we’re getting out of here?” Joel moved to the roof, scanning it much like Sasha did. “I checked already. There’s no way down.”

“I know I’m just thinking.” Joel looked around, scanning the town. “Y’all got a map or something?” Levi reached into his backpack, handing Joel a rolled up piece of paper. “Thanks.” He scanned over the map with his eye and his finger. Sasha came beside him to see what he was getting at. When his finger stopped it seemed to click for both of them. “You think this church might have a bell tower?”

“It might.”

“If we could get there and ring it, that could bring a lot of the infected to one part of town. Would probably make gettin’ out of here a whole lot easier.”

“It’s risky,” Sasha muttered.

“Just getting off this roof is risky. I like this though.”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. Just risky.”

“Well,” Joel started rolling up the map and handed it back to Sasha. “We ain’t made it this far by playin’ safe. No matter what we do it’s gonna be risky.”

Sasha turned to Levi who nodded with approval. “Well, we should get moving soon. Catch your breath.”

____________________________

  
  


“Why’re we stopping?” Mike hopped out of the second truck and headed towards the front where Owen had stopped his own truck.

“We’re gonna start running low on food soon enough. Might be good to at least get a couple rabbits.”

“We can just ration,” Mike argued.

“Some of us need food,” Mel argued, feeling her belly.

“You didn’t need to come in the first place.”

“Excuse m-”

“Well she’s here now and we’re gonna need food for the road ahead.” Abby interjected to try and stop a fight from breaking out.

_Can Mike not cause a fight for one damn second._

“Mike, why don’t you and Manny go kill something. I’ll take Nora with me, everybody watch over the trucks.” She commanded, Nora reluctantly got up and followed Abby while Mike reluctantly went with Manny.

_Can he get along with anybody?_

Abby and Nora walked off in the opposite direction. Nora wasn’t much of a soldier, she worked more in the medical field but just like everyone here she had a vendetta against Joel. She needed to be here but she didn’t have the stomach for these types of things which was _really_ bad in a zombie infested world.

“Here.” Abby handed Nora a bow and arrow.

“Woah, um, Abby I thought I was just gonna be calling out anything I see.”

“It’s about time you started killing at least rabbits.”

“Abby…”

“Nora, you gotta suck it up.” She was impressed Nora was able to stay in the lodge when she was beating down Joel but just watching was something she could stomach most of the time. Actually doing the killing was something different. Nora was okay at killing infected, killing animals for her was something different. She wasn’t vegan or anything, just preferred not seeing the killing process of what she was eating. She also had trouble killing people which had gotten _really_ bad. She had to stay back at base and tend to people who returned. “You can fire a bow well enough. Let’s fire at a bunny now.” They moved slowly, listening for any movement or rustling of leaves. Abby just spotted some movement out of a burrow in the ground. “There.” She guided Nora’s vision. “Draw.” Nora followed Abby’s directions, drawing her bow and aiming at the rabbit. “You think you got it?”

“Think so.”

“It’s not moving, you should fire now.”

Nora fired but just missed. She sighed with relief which ticked Abby a little bit but this was why she was here.

_Crack._

She heard that, sounded big. Abby scanned the area, looking for what it was when she saw a deer. “Oh shit.” Abby pushed down on Nora’s back to get her down. “That should keep us going for a while.”

Nora immediately gave the bow to Abby and she wasn’t gonna argue with her on that one. They couldn’t afford to miss the deer. Abby drew her bow back quickly and released immediately. The arrow travelled fast and straight through the deer's eye, right on target. Nora looked away. She was like her at some point, she had difficulty stomaching the killing of animals just trying to survive like her. But she knew that they needed this and Nora would learn eventually.

“C’mon, I need you to help me bring it back.” Nora followed behind her, looking dejected and Abby figured that maybe she should comfort her. “Hey, don’t feel too bad. You’ll be a bunny killer soon enough.”

“I just wish killing came as easy as it does for you. It’s gonna get me killed one of these days.”

Abby went over, removing the arrow from the deer and petting its side in a sort of _thank you._ She did it every time she killed an animal, felt wrong to use it and not thank it for what it was giving them. She was told it was also something hunters used to do back when civilization was still a thing but it was less common now.

“Trust me,” Abby said, grabbing one of the hooves. “It’s not easy.” They started dragging the deer back to the trucks and Abby remembered the other reason she’d wanted to bring Nora with her. “I’ve been wanting to ask. Are you okay? I know you were right next to Nick when he died.”

“I think I’m okay.” She responded although Abby didn’t quite buy it. “We didn’t exactly know him too well but… it’s never easy seeing life leave someone’s eyes.”

She felt bad for Nick. He was good friends with Jordan at least, good enough friends that he was willing to join them on a revenge quest that had nothing to do with him. They never really talked but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel guilty that he got killed on a mission he didn’t need to be on.

When they got back to the trucks. Manny and Mike were already back and seemed to have about three rabbits and a turkey? _Nice._ But Mike looked wide eyed at the deer.

“Oh ho ho and I thought Christmas had passed.” He gave one of his rare smiles, walking over to the deer. If there was one thing that could get his spirits up it was the certification that he wouldn’t have to ration which was strange because he was all for rationing not about an hour ago.

“This should all last us a good while.” Abby said, motioning for Owen to help her and Nora lift the deer into the trunk.

“Most definitely.” Owen agreed. “Are we ready to get going again?”

“Yeah, no point in just standing around.”

“Mel, you need any rest?” Owen asked, moving over to check on her and she hated that it hurt to see.

“No, we should keep moving.” She assured. She really wished Mel hadn’t come along. Abby couldn’t see things turning out well for the baby.

“Okay… back in the trucks then.” Owen moved to the driver seat but Abby quickly shut the door as he was opening it.

“I’ll drive.”

“Oh, c’mon I got i-”

“You know I’m not sleeping anyways and you’ve driven the entire time.”

Owen seemed like he wanted to argue but his body betrayed him, he was clearly tired and needed some rest so he moved to the passenger seat and she took drivers.

“We shoulda packed some cassettes.” She commented, pointing to the tape player in the truck.

“Oh well I just remembered, I actually did manage to find this on the way to Jackson.” He reached into the glove compartment.

“You’ve had that the whole time?” Her mouth was agape. They’d just been listening to the tires on the cracked road and the engine humming when they could’ve been listening to whatever tunes were on there.

“I forgot, sorry.”

“Do you know what’s on here?” She asked, ripping it from Owen’s hands.

“I don’t know, hopefully a few songs at least.” He said, settling in and closing his eyes.

“You’re not gonna listen?”

“I’ll listen later, I need sleep now.”

She chuckled and turned the key and inserted the tape when they had a good amount of speed. The strum of the guitar was familiar, she knew the song well. It was pretty sad and didn’t put her in a good mood but she supposed it was better than nothing.

____________________________

_I hurt myself today_

_To see if I still feel_

_I focus on the pain_

_The only thing that's real_

_The needle tears a hole_

_The old familiar sting_

_Try to kill it all away_

_But I remember everything_

_What have I become_

_My sweetest friend?_

_Everyone I know_

_Goes away in the end_

_And you could have it all_

_My empire of dirt_

_I will let you down_

_I will make you hurt_

_~Johnny Cash - Hurt_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is wondering yes Levi is a reference to Lev because (spoiler) Lev and Yara won't be in this story because they wouldn't fit and would just feel shoehorned into the plot. But I actually liked them in the game so I included a reference to them in here.


	8. Pursued By A Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel and Ellie try to navigate their way out of town along with Sasha and Levi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really appreciate the comments. They really motivate me to try and write these even if I do take a really long time. Maybe I'll try and start replying to some of them but I'm really lazy.

Morning had come and gone, the sun moved from above the treeline to above their heads and the sky was perfectly blue. Not a single cloud as far as they looked just a sea of light blue above their heads. There was barely any wind, perhaps a light breeze every now and then but otherwise it was a lovely day. It was warm enough that the snow would be almost completely melted but cold enough that they only had to unzip their jackets. The beauty of the day didn’t suit the place they found themselves in.

It would’ve been a good day to sit outside and pick away at random tunes on his guitar and maybe lightly sing to himself. The very same guitar he’d left in the truck in the chaos and panic. He’d probably never see it again which was a shame. He’d worked hard to take care of that guitar, polishing it, replacing strings whenever it was required. He should’ve gotten someone in town to paint some pretty patterns on it, make it more personal.

His old guitar, the first one he ever had had some nice patterning on it. He remembered it vividly, the way it curved so fluently with three lone roses planted at random along the pattern. The design held no rhyme or reason to it, no personal or deeper meaning in the way it was conceived. He just always liked looking at it. He missed that guitar.

Maybe whoever passed through this town next would find that guitar, make good use of it. He at least hoped so, he hoped someone would find it and take good care of it just as he did and whoever it belonged to before.

The woman who he’d come to know as Sasha stood beside him, looking over the town. She looked so much like Tess it hurt. He recalled the one night he’d loosened up for once. It was after a big job they’d pulled off, earned themselves enough ration cards to last them six months easily. They would lose those ration cards and would never see them again. He’d had enough to drink where he wasn’t quite tipsy but one more drink and he’d be on his way. He’d told her about Sarah, about Catherine. About how she’d left both of them with nothing but a note on his bedside table. Tess said she sounded like a ‘good for nothing whore.’ He’d snorted. Might’ve been the first time he’d laughed at something he genuinely found funny.

She told him she came to Boston hoping to find her parents and maybe her brother and nephew. She didn’t. She’d lost hope long ago. He’d treated Tess the way he treated everything that hurt him, ignore it, never talk about it. He’d done the same with Sarah, with Sam and Henry, and he would’ve done the same had he sent Ellie to go with Tommy. But he’d come to learn that it’s not the most healthy of ways to cope.

So he started talking about her, at least a little bit. He told Tommy about what he’d missed after he left Boston, he’d commented on how Tess seemed like she was exactly as he remembered her and that wasn’t far off at all. He told Ellie stories if she ever asked, tried to tell her happier stories which were far and few between but she’d enjoyed hearing them at the time.

And after all that, now that he saw this woman, Sasha, standing right there alive and well. It hurt more than any fist or bullet. Tess’ death felt like a knife lodged in his side that he’d never removed, now it was just being twisted.

“Hey there,” Sasha said in a voice that was so unlike Tess. He didn’t respond. “Are you… okay?” she asked. _No_ , he thought but he still didn’t respond. She gave up quickly on her attempt at small talk, she seemed the impatient type. “You know, you’ve been looking at me funny since the moment we met.”

He knew that; he'd tried not to look in her direction but his efforts seemingly forced him to do what he’d tried so hard not to. “Sorry,” he finally said.

“You better not be thinking of trying to pull something. I’ve killed men bigger than you with both their eyes.”  
  


“I don’t doubt it.” Had that same attitude as Tess. A sister? Tess never mentioned a sister and she assured him he pretty much knew everything about her family at that point. Sore subject maybe? “But I ain’t gonna pull nothing. You saved our lives, that’d be pretty rude.”

She tried to give nothing away but he learned to read people a long time ago. She believed him. Impatient and trusting, quite the combination. Hopefully trustworthy was a part of those traits.

“Here give it a listen,” he heard Ellie say. He turned his head to see her showing off her walkman to Levi. He seemed to be enjoying whatever tape she’d played him. His head was bobbing slightly to the music and there was a little grin adorning his face. “You like it?”

He gave her a thumbs up in response, his smile becoming wider.

“Haven’t seen him smile like that in a while,” Sasha commented.

“Ellie’s got a talent for makin’ people happy,” he replied, beginning to smile himself.

“She your daughter?”

“No. I just take care of her.” But to Joel she was in all but blood. “He your son?”

“Of course, can’t you see the resemblance?” She replied sarcastically. He chuckled lightly.

“Well, you got any family?” He asked, subtle trying to gain some information because who knows maybe she was a sister Tess never brought up.

“I don’t think so. Dad left home when I was little. Mom died of cancer two years before the outbreak. Don’t know about any other family.”

So not a sister. Tess wanted to find her parents in Boston and those stories don’t line up. Part of him is glad, maybe she’d have stories of Tess as a child if she had been her sister and he doesn’t think he’d be able to bear hearing those. Maybe it was a false story? Pretty elaborate if it was one.

“You got a sister?” He asked bluntly.

“That’s a rather specific question.”

“It is,” he admitted

“You gonna tell me why?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You remind me of somebody.”

“Ah… well no, no sister. Not one that I know of at least.”

Could be long lost siblings or some shit like that. Some people just looked similar. She didn’t have a similar accent to Tess but hell it was worth a shot. He wouldn’t dwell on it because it seemed like he wouldn’t get anywhere else on that subject.

“You didn’t come in here with anyone else, did you?” She asked.

“No, just us.”

“So does that mean no family for you either?”

“I got a brother, he’s got a wife.” That was all he said, no location, no name, nothing.

“Where were you headed?”

“You’ve got a lot of questions.” He was getting wary now, afraid she might know him too.

“You don’t have to answer them.” She replied.

He didn’t have to. “South.” He answered. “You?”

“North,” she replied, just as vaguely.

“Anywhere specific?”  
  


“Nope, just wherever the wind takes us,” could be a lie, could be the truth. Sometimes he didn’t bother trying to read people. “And you?”

“Same for us.”

She nodded, looking back at Ellie and Levi who seemed to be getting along really well. He thinks Ellie could be a good mother someday if she had to take care of someone.

“Have you been able to find a way off this roof because I sure as hell haven’t,” Sasha said.

“Actually I think I have.” He got up, motioning for her to follow him and she did. He moved to the other side and guided her vision to what he wanted her to see. They were looking at a different section of the building’s roof, a section they needed to get to. “Whoever used to live here clearly liked avoiding the ground.” There were bridges on cranks that could be lowered and lifted back up, they seemed hazardous but they were their best option.

“It’s gonna be difficult to get there unnoticed. We’d need to be quiet.” She gave him a sidelong glance which told him that _we_ really meant _you._

He reined it in and kept his mouth shut, it wouldn’t do them any good to start an argument about how he wasn’t useless just because he was one eye short.

“How’re we gonna handle those lovely folks?” Sasha asks, jerking her head in the direction of where some infected were still standing. Some had left at that point but the bloater and some other clickers and runners had decided to stick around.

“Ellie,” he called, Ellie got up and motioned for Levi to follow her.

“Yeah?”

“You still got that gunpowder we picked up?”

“Uh-huh,” she shrugged her backpack off her shoulders, reaching in and handing Joel the bag.

“What’re you doing?” Sasha asked, coming closer after Joel took out a pair of scissors.

“Just something an old friend taught me.” The angry bastard probably didn’t care that much but if he ever could maybe it would be a good idea to pay Bill a visit one of these days. He finished making the nail bomb, handing it off to Ellie. “Hope you’ve been working on that throwing arm.”

“Pfff, I thought I told you I was the brick master.”

“This ain’t a brick kiddo.”

“It’s close enough,” she wound up her arm, throwing the bomb to the otherside of the roof and all the infected rushed to investigate the noise.

“Guess you have been workin’ on that.”

“Nope, all natural talent,” she smirked. “Let’s get moving then.” She was first, hopping down. Joel went down next, the thump of his boots on the roof was blocked out by the nail bomb going off. Levi and Sasha followed and they all got moving quickly and quietly. The nail bomb took out a good amount of infected but there were still too many for them to deal with on their own with the amount of space they had on the roof.

“C’mon, let’s hurry up.” Joel whispered, turning the corner to head in the direction of the bridge when he came face to face with a clicker, hunched over, resting. It somehow hadn’t heard all the commotion and remained here right around the corner. Joel’s whole body tensed up as he was right in front of it and any sudden movements would alert the clicker to his presence. Slowly he lifted his gun, aiming it right at the clicker. It wasn’t clicking much meaning it was still asleep. They each tried moving past it as quietly as possible as it twitched, clicking, but sadly they weren’t quick enough.

A scream from a runner that survived the blast sounded and the clicker woke up, going straight for Ellie. Joel whipped his revolver out, blowing out the clicker’s head before it could get anywhere near her. “Run!” He yelled, seeing the bloater which also survived the blast beginning to hobble towards them.

They sprinted across the roof to the bridge which wasn’t as far as it originally seemed, the bridge was already lowered meaning all they had to do was run across. “Keep running!” Joel screamed, he was behind everyone and the bridge was narrow and unsturdy, meaning it was one at a time.

Levi and Sasha were first across and Joel was right behind Ellie. The bridge wasn’t too long but they only made it halfway across before a plank collapsed and Joel’s leg fell through, now he was stuck with a bunch of hungry bastards right on his tail.

“Joel!” Ellie yelled, doing a 180 and coming to help get him unstuck. Sasha shot what infected she could while Ellie worked on Joel’s leg. “Almost got it.” One infected got by Sasha’s bullet and right up next to Joel. It was so close he could smell it’s breath, it reeked of guts, blood, and pus. Reminded him that he needed to find another toothbrush soon but that shouldn’t be his main concern as of right now. Joel pulled his revolver from where it was stored in his waistband and blew the infected’s head wide open, it’s brain and pieces of its skull got all over both him and Ellie but they couldn’t be bothered to care. “Got it! Let’s go!”

She didn’t need to tell him twice as they both booked it across the bridge, he’d only been stuck for a few seconds but it felt like it stretched on for minutes. The bloater, along with the rest of the infected were close behind and running in a wave across the bridge, some falling to the ground. The old bridge couldn’t take the weight and collapsed just as Joel had made his way across with one foot on the solid roof. One lone runner had caught his leg, grabbing it and clawing into his pant leg. Ellie worked to make sure he didn’t fall along with the rest of the infected below and Sasha shot the runner in the head, its body going limp and falling to the ground with the rest.

“That was too close,” Joel panted, lifting his pant leg. _Still not bitten._

“Is it always _too close_ with you?” Sasha asked, moving over to Levi to make sure he was okay.

“More often than you’d think,” Ellie answered.

“Let’s just keep moving to that bell tower,” Joel said, motioning for everyone to follow them. They didn’t have to move as quickly now that they weren’t being chased down by infected and he could start keeping an eye out for more supplies on the roofs.

Someone tapped on his shoulder, it was Levi. He handed him a box of ammo which seemed to be revolver bullets. “Thanks kid,” he smiled to which Levi nodded. Seemed like a nice enough kid, saved him and Ellie even though Sasha told him not to. He’d spoken with people who couldn’t speak, had their tongues cut out by people who’d lost their minds without the aid of cordyceps and he knew it was best to stick to yes or no questions.

“You been travelling with Sasha long?” Joel asked. to which Levi nodded yes. Then his stomach grumbled. “You hungry?” Joel chuckled to which Levi shook his head only for his stomach to respond in another grumble. “Here.” Joel pulled a bar out of his bag, handing it to Levi who seemed hesitant to take it. “I’ll be alright,” Joel assured him and Levi finally took the bar, quickly stuffing it down his throat.

He smiled, somebody taught the kid manners at least but he shouldn’t turn down food especially when he was hungry.

“You got a gun, don’t you?” He asked, he hadn’t seen Levi use a gun since he met him and they’d had to deal with a lot of infected in that short amount of time. Levi lifted his slightly oversized shirt to show a gun in his makeshift gun holster. “You use it often?” Levi shook his head no. That was both good and bad. It at least meant that Sasha could take care of him just fine on his own but he hoped that when the time came he could defend himself just fine. Because that time would most certainly come whether he wanted to or not.

“We got another bridge!” Sasha yelled to the two of them. They both looked up to where Sasha was standing by a bridge that was lifted up, they’d need to lower it just like the last one.

Sasha started turning the crank, lowering it down to the other side of the roof, it looked just about as sturdy as the last one. “I don’t think these bridges are built to code,” Ellie commented.

“We’ll make due,” Sasha said, wasting no time in making her way across the bridge. Joel followed in behind both Levi and Sasha. He could hear the infected below the bridge, moaning and clicking, he elected not to look down and to keep trudging forward.

He made it across without any mishaps unlike last time. They seemed to be over an apartment complex, probably lots of supplies, also lots of infected. Wouldn’t be worth it, best to just stick to the roofs and get the hell out of here as quickly as possible. “Another one,” Sasha announced, this one had remained lowered unlike the other two and Sasha was first to step on. She made it about two steps before the bridge started collapsing on her. “Shit!” She yelled, twisting around and jumping back, holding onto the ledge Joel dove forward to pull her up.

“I gotcha,” he grunted, heaving her up. She was heavier than she looked but he didn’t tell her that. He’d had to pull Tess up from ledges plenty of times before, they had to take a few dangerous and unsturdy routes to meet Bill before they’d settled on which ones were safest and most efficient, and that meant a lot of collapsing ground and both of them occasionally took a tumble. It was surprising that they’d managed to make it out of there relatively unscathed most of the time. Only once did Tess get a particularly nasty injury that Joel had to patch up back at her place. It was the first time he saw her with her shirt off, first time she showed him her scars and she had _a lot_ of them.

He wished he could stop thinking about Tess and this woman was not helping, she was not important right now.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him. She didn’t smile like Tess, he could only remember one time he’d seen her smile, genuinely smiled, and even then it was small but she’d been scowling since the day they’d met so the smallest upturn of her lips was always easily noticeable to him.

“Well there goes our way across,” he sighed. The gap was too large to jump unless their lives had become unimportant to them at some point or another.

“Maybe we could cut through the apartment? Get across and keep going,” Ellie suggested. They didn’t have any better options so Joel nodded even though he didn’t like it.

“That sound okay to you, Levi?” Sasha asked to which Levi nodded, if not hesitantly. “Well looks like we’re headed in.”

Sasha led the way as she had the entire time. “Stay close,” Joel commanded Ellie to which she nodded. Sasha opened the roof entrance door as quietly as she could, all of them listening for any moans or clicks. When they heard nothing they went inside, walking silently down the stairs. The floor was clear, no infected or spores. The other three went down to the next floor while Joel went to check one of the apartments. He always had to make sure they left no stone unturned, it helped them find useful supplies most of the time. He approached the door, struggling with the handle before concluding that it was locked. Lucky for him he had a shiv made earlier in his back pocket, Tess preferred lockpicking, found it less wasteful to just- _stop. Stop thinking about her._

He entered the apartment, it seemed relatively tidy. No blood or spores. Perfect for him to start searching. He checked the cabinets, under the table. He found some painkillers and some more binding. Other than that the place was pretty much picked clean. Nothing of value. If nothing was in the kitchen it was unlikely that he’d find anything in the bathroom or bedroom but they might be worth a look. He turned to head there when out of the corner of his eye he spotted a journal, sitting on the kitchen counter.

He had a strange compulsion to read everything he found because occasionally people wrote down where they hid things. He opened the journal, also noticing a pencil was sitting next to it. Maybe he could give the pencil to Ellie, she might want it for her own little diary.

He flipped the pages, the journal wasn’t too full so it wouldn’t take him long.

_Page 1_

_I haven’t written anything in this book since mom and dad got it for me but now mom and dad are driving and they seem scared. They won’t tell me what happened or why we left our town. I left my teddy on my bed because I was too sleepy to remember when we left. They won’t tell me why we left or why we can’t go back. They’re telling me it will all be okay but I’m scared._

  
  


_Page 2_

_They brought us to a town. It didn’t have people like the one I grew up in. All the buildings looked broken. I thought I saw someone walking funny but mom and dad told me to stay away and that they probably weren’t nice people._

_They never told me what was outside the walls and why I couldn’t leave and they still won’t. It’s just scaring me more._

  
  


_Page 3_

_Mom and dad went into a shop and told me to stay in the car. I was going to but I heard someone screaming and they sounded hurt. I went looking for them to see if they needed help but mom and dad were right because they weren’t nice. One of them bit me and it still really hurts but I was able to run away. Now mom and dad are crying but won’t tell me why._

  
  


_Page 4_

_Mom ran outside crying and dad told me to stay inside while he went to get her. He didn’t come back for a long time, when he did he was crying too. Mom wasn’t with him. He told me mom was sleeping and that it’s okay. He hugged me and told me he loved me and that he was sorry. I don’t know why he’s sorry, I know he loves me. He’s calling me into the bathroom, he’s telling me I should get ready to go to sleep. I hope he helps me with my bite because it still really hurts._

That was it. That was where it ended. Last time this kid wrote in their journal they were headed to the bathroom. He gulped, gathering the strength to head over and see for himself. He’d seen plenty of dead bodies over the years, this was no different. 

He walked forward, moving slow knowing he could just turn back at any point. He opened the door, slowly. The bathroom was small, meaning he quickly saw the pair of small decaying feet in the bathtub, and he still walked forward.

The girl was young, too young. She was probably no older than eleven, no child deserves something like that. It would’ve broken him back in Jackson if he’d heard one of the children there had been killed. “This is what happens when you shelter your damn kids,” he muttered to himself. If those parents had just taught their daughter properly then maybe none of this would’ve happened.

“Joel!”

_Shit. Ellie._

He came out into the hallway, seeing her come into the door. “Be careful using my name.”

“They can’t hear me anyways,” Ellie argued. “You find anything?”

“No,” he lied. He needed to work on lying to her, he’d never been good at it.

Ellie stared at him, looking right into his eyes. “Joel, we talked about the lies.”

He looked down guilty, then looked behind him to where he left that little girl’s body. “It’ll just make you feel worse.”

“I can see it if I want Joel,” she replied. “What’d you find?” She saw the journal out of the corner of her own eye and made a beeline for it. Her eyes moved left to right, reading over the journal until she looked back up at Joel. She wasn’t angry, just sad. But he knew what she was thinking. _If only there was a cure._

She made her way right to the bathroom and Joel followed. She found the girls body, her shoulders dropped and she let out a breath. “At least it was quick,” she said, pointing at the hole in the girl’s head.

“I guess so.”

“Still, it’s not fair.”

“Nothin’ is.”

She left the bathroom and he followed once again. This time she went for the bedroom and this time Joel stopped her. “What’re you doing?”

“I think we already know what’s behind that door.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know what I’d do if I had to do that to you,” he said sadly. Seeing people who’d ended it themselves always hit too close to home, because it so easily could’ve been him all those years ago.

She turned her head back to the doorknob where her hand was still placed and removed it.

“Well uh… they’re waiting for us downstairs. Let’s go.”

She turned to leave. He went to follow, looking back one more time at the bathroom, then leaving the apartment behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may need to alter the lore just a little bit for the ending to make sense but not too much. We've still got plenty of chapters to go so I don't need to worry about that too much yet.


	9. See You Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel struggles internally with this woman who looks so much like Tess as everything just comes rushing back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was the biggest struggle of this entire story and I just needed to get through it to get to the other chapters. If there's mistakes or inconsistencies sorry this single chapter was written over the span of two months :(

“Y’all find anything?” Joel asked, walking into the apartment from which Ellie said she’d come from and leaving behind the tragedy which he had left upstairs.

“A couple bullets, not enough to make any real difference though,” Sasha sighed. “But we got this right here.”

Ellie and Joel followed her to the window and to a relatively intact fire escape. “Should take us down to the road,” Joel said. “And there ain’t too many infected down there.”

“And I heard some clicking downstairs,” Sasha states.

“Guess that answers which way we’re going.” Joel lifted the intact window open and stepped onto the rusty and shaky fire exit. “Wait for me to get down.” They couldn’t allow any more weight onto the exit, otherwise it would collapse and attract the infected down below. At least there weren’t as many as before.

Despite what he believed would happen the stairs didn’t collapse and he was able to lower the ladder and drop down to the ground. Sasha was right behind him, landing next to him behind an old car frame where they surveyed the infected.

There were about four, all runners, easy enough. “I got that one on the left, by the barricade,” Sasha said. “You got the one on the right.”

“Yes ma’am.”

He moved forward, he could still do this the same as he could before. Slow and steady, smooth steps to make as little noise as possible. He grabbed the runner from behind, strangling it the same way he’d done it hundreds of times before. It struggled for a bit, before its arms went limp and he placed its body down quietly. _At least I can still do that just fine._

“Psst,” he heard Sasha from behind the barricade. She lifted her pistol, aiming it at one of the runners and Joel did the same with his own. She counted them down, mouthing 3, 2, 1. They both took the shot and Joel hated that he felt proud that he landed the shot, he shouldn’t feel proud for shooting something that wasn’t paying attention it should feel like second nature to him.

Ellie and Levi had finally joined them as Sasha was already at the door of the building across, an old furniture store. She vaulted through the broken window and moved to find if there were any infected hanging around. “We’re in the clear,” Sasha announced, motioning for everyone to follow her in. “We got a ladder that leads up to the roof. Search the place first.”

They each followed Sasha into the store. Most of the furniture had remained in place over the years to collect a thick layer of dust which kept Ellie from flopping onto one of the nearby couches unless she wanted to fill the air with dust.

Levi however didn’t seem to care and immediately went to a nearby bed, jumping on it. Joel squinted at him, it was a nice sight to see that childlike joy again. It was something he’d rarely seen from Ellie now that she was close to being a grown woman but he missed the little girl who found joy out of scaling a dinosaur.

“Sometimes you miss it, don’t you?” Sasha asked, standing next to him.

“Miss what?” Joel asked, replying to her question with his own.

“Youth, finding joy out of simple shit like that. Now the most joy we get out of life is laying down to sleep.”

He nodded as he thought back to when he and Tommy were younger, when they’d have fake wrestling matches and find sticks in the park and pretend to be knights. Or heading down to the creak with their friends and swinging off the vines into the water.

“Yeah, I miss it.”

Ellie was giggling, watching Levi continue jumping on the bed and she decided to join him. They’d probably break it. “I don’t know what it is with him and beds but he just feels a need to jump on em’ the second he finds one.”

He chuckled lightly at that. There was a brief silence before Sasha spoke again.

“Do you ever have any doubts?”

“About what?”

“About being able to protect your kid. Keep you and her alive.”

“It’s easier to doubt,” Joel responded. “It’s easier to tell each other and tell other people that you’ll probably be dead in a few days, then you won’t be disappointed. But… I guess there’s times where I’m foolish enough to believe we're gonna make it out of the shit we're in.”

“Well it can’t be too foolish I mean you’ve made it this far.” She clearly had her doubts as much as he did hers. Maybe she’d never been in a situation like this before. She seemed capable though from what he’d seen so far. Maybe she just needed that reassurance that her feelings were justified but that in the end maybe everything would be okay.  
  


“I guess, but it's mostly been luck. You two findin’ us was real lucky.”

“Well I’m sure we’ll get out of this damn town on more than just luck.” She went off the look for more supplies even though like seemingly everywhere else here the place was picked clean. They’d be hard pressed to find spare supplies in many places in the world. Honestly he and Ellie would have to start checking the bodies of the infected they’d killed, maybe fresher ones would have some new boots that he was in desperate need of.

The thought made him cringe, he was thinking like a hunter again. At least this time he was thinking of taking things off of an infected but still he didn’t want to go back to being that kind of man ever again. He wanted to bury that man the way that man buried the Joel before the outbreak.

“We should just head up to the roof,” Sasha said, emerging from a back room.

“Fine by me,” Joel said, Ellie and Levi got off the bed and the little boy looked rather disappointed that he had to leave his short lived fun behind.

Climbing up so they could cross yet another rickety and untrustworthy bridge was getting repetitive and annoying. Thank god they were at the bell tower by now.

The bell tower was old, the stonework was crumbling and cracking but the tower would hopefully be able to hold their weight.

The tower was probably the oldest building in the town even before the outbreak, the wood floors that creaked and groaned with every step didn’t ease Joel’s worry as they got higher and higher. Especially whenever they have to hop over gaps and the floors would make the exact same sound but ten times worse.

At the top they could see most of the nearby streets, most littered with infected. They were far enough that they should be able to make a quick getaway. “We got a way off once we ring this? ‘Cause we’re gonna need to move fast,” Joel tells Sasha as she examines a bell.

“Yeah, another bridge. Thank god.” She pointed out a bridge through a whole in the floor. It was one floor under them, leading to an adjacent building. If they moved quickly they could get out of the area fast while the rest of the infected focused on the bell. 

“Bell looks pretty old,” Joel commented. “Think it could fall through the floor if we ring it?”

“That would still be noisy enough,” Sasha responded.

“Alright well, you two. Get across the bridge you don’t need to wait for us,” Joel told Ellie and Levi.

“Uh, right. C’mon Levi.” Both of them heading down winding stairs to the floor below them and across the bridge.

“Help me with this,” Sasha said, gripping the bell and Joel moved beside her so they could lift it back to ring it. “You know, you’re decent people,” Sasha grunted as they struggled to lift the bell higher. “Why don’t you come with us. I know it's not where you were headed but we seem to work well together and it would be nice for Levi to have someone closer to his age around.”

“I appreciate it,” Joel groaned, the bell was almost high enough. “But we don’t work so well with other people.”

“From what I’ve seen, I’d have to disagree.” The bell was now high enough for them to let go. “Ready?”

Joel nodded and they both let go, letting the bell swing forward as they quickly moved to cover their ears. It was still incredibly loud and Joel would need to lie down for a while once they were out of danger but right now he needed to focus on getting away from this tower.

“You think that attracted ‘em?” Sasha asked, to which they heard multiple screeches in the distance.

“Oh it definitely attracted ‘em. Let’s go.”

They moved down the stairs as quick as they could and headed straight for the bridge. Joel was first across, the bridge sounded terrible from the moment he stepped foot on it which should’ve tipped him off. He was almost across when the bridge started to collapse, the wood snapping right underneath his feet. He was close enough that he was able to just jump far enough and hold onto the edge of the roof where Ellie and Levi were able to help him up. Sasha was not as fortunate.

He looked back to see the bridge had collapsed right before Sasha was able to cross. “Jump, I’ll catch you!” Joel shouted.

“There’s no way in hell I’m making that jump!” She screamed back.

“Try anyways!” She probably wouldn’t make it but there was no way in hell he was letting her stay back there. _Why the hell did he care? He barely knew this woman! So what if she’s the spitting image of Tess._

She contemplated it as the screeches and clicks got closer and closer and they started running out of time. “Nah, I’ll take my chances,” she said, pulling out her gun. “Keep Levi safe alright!”

“Te- Sasha!” He yelled but she was already heading back inside and back down to street level. “Goddammit.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Ellie asked, Levi seemed to have made up his mind as he started towards the roof access door before Joel quickly grabbed him.

“Oh no you don’t,” he held him back despite Levi’s protests. For as scrawny and short as the kid seemed he was strong. “Stop fighting,” Joel growled but Levi didn’t listen to him in the slightest, even resorting to biting him. “Ahh, hey!” He yelled, spinning him around and gripping him by his shoulders. “Sasha is as good as dead! We will be too if we don’t get the hell out of this town. So here’s what’s gonna happen we-”

_We’re leaving. The edge of town ain’t far, we get out and leave this place and Sasha behind because it would be suicide to go back. That’s what he should say so why wasn’t he going to!?_

“You two get outta here,” he sighed. “The edge of town ain’t far. Ellie take this.”

He handed her a map, showing her where the church was and where they had to go. “What about you?” Ellie asked.

“I’m gonna go get Sasha.”

“Wh- Joel that’s a terrible idea,” she said.

“I know but I’ll be fine. You know me.”

“Joel-”

“Ellie I’m not arguin’ with you right now there’s no time!”

Ellie took a step back, not saying anything else. She nodded, grabbing Levi’s arm and taking him to the roof access door. “Joel, be careful,” she said.

____________________________

  
  


They were out of the city, the outskirts where it most likely used to be an old highway that led out into the country. Her and Levi got under an old bridge, huddling together and thankful that they couldn’t hear the screeches of the infected from that town anymore.

They were safe. Joel wasn’t.

She should probably go back, make sure he made it out okay. But Levi was here and she should keep him safe, right?  
  


Joel could die, he was missing an eye and the bastard was getting old. Something was wrong.

She should care. _No,_ she does care. She knows she does but she just feels like she should care more than she does.

She doesn’t want him to die, they know that, she knows that. But was that it? Did she just come along to make sure he survived? _No. Nonono that’s not right. We were finally having fun like the good days. She came because she goes where Joel goes, right?_

If he died she was going to cry, if he came back she’d hug him. _No, don’t plan reactions like some sociopath what the hell is wrong with you?_

This was stupid, she was desperate last time he was almost killed. She cared! She did! So why was she still fucking questioning if she did?

Next to her Levi was shaking, his knees were pulled up to his chest and he looked like he was on the verge of crying. Maybe this was the closest Sasha had danced with death. This could be the first time he thought she wouldn’t come back.

“You scared?” She asked, to which he shakily nodded.

She didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t comfort, she was the one who was comforted. When she’d killed David, Joel held her close whenever she woke up sweating and crying. When a friend she’d made in Jackson left on patrol and never came back Dina and Joel were there. When Joel was on the verge of death in that freezing cold basement in Colorado she didn’t know how to comfort him. All she could do was constantly mumble “you’re gonna make it” and “everything will be alright.” It was more to reassure herself rather than him, he probably didn’t even hear her whenever she said it.

So she did what Joel, Dina, Tommy, and others did when she was having a rough time. She opened her arms, inviting Levi into them to quell his fear. He didn’t turn but he eyed her, hesitantly. She was about to withdraw her arms because maybe she was wrong, maybe this was the wrong way to comfort him right now. How the hell would she know.

But Levi quickly moved forward before she could back out and held her tight. She did her best to soothe him, stroking his head and telling him that they’ll see them coming to get them and they’d all leave soon enough.

Joel would come back, he always did. When he did she would have plenty of time to figure out where she stood on him but right now she needed to try her best to be comforting.

____________________________

  
  


Finding her wasn’t hard, he just had to follow the sound of gunshots and screeches. Getting to her was another story and getting away once he got to her was not going to be fun.

He saw her briefly when she turned a corner, firing her gun when an infected got too close. He quickly ran into a nearby building to cut through it and get around the horde to get to her.

He ran at full force at a door that led into an ally, knocking it down immediately. He almost crashed head first into a brick wall the second he exited but caught himself before he did any more damage to his face.

He saw her run by the alley. “Hey!” He yelled and he’d be thanking god tonight that she heard him and was able to make a turn into the alley to join them. “Grab this!” He yelled, grabbing the end of a dumpster and turning it to block off the alley. It wouldn’t stop the infected but it would slow them down a bit.

“The hell are you doing here!” She yelled at him.

“Not right now!” He yelled back as he led her out into the street, where they encountered less infected in the streets.

“Shit uh, this way!” Sasha commanded, rushing to a service door. Probably an old auto shop but Joel couldn’t be bothered to check the sign.

“Hold em’ off while I get this open!” Joel immediately got to work on the chain while Sasha fired off shots behind him.

“I can’t hold them for much longer!” She warned.

“I know!” He replied. The door was high enough for them to slide under. “Go!”

She moved as fast as she could under the door while he held the chain from the other side. “I got it!” She yelled from the other side and he could see her hands gripping the underside of the door.

He quickly rolled under and Sasha let the door fall from her fingers as soon as he’d gotten through.

They both sat there looking at the door, the infected hitting it from the other side desperately trying to get it but to no avail. When they figured they were in the clear Sasha punched him hard in the arm.

“What the hell are you doing!” She yelled at him. 

“What am I doing? What’re you doin’?”

“Where’s Levi?!” She yelled another question, seemed like all they could do at the moment.

“He’s fine, Ellie took him to the outskirts of town.”

“And you trust her to protect him?” She asked nervously.

“More than I trust myself,” he said with conviction. “We wouldn’t even be in this situation if you’d just jumped!”

“You’re right because I’d be dead!”

“I thought you trusted me!”

“I do but not with that you know damn well there was no way I was making that jump!”

“I woulda caught you!”

There was suddenly a large bang on the door and a low grumble as if even the infected were tired of their bickering.

“We’ll save it for later. Let’s find some roof access.” Sasha turned her back to start looking

“No, we should stick to the street from now on,” Joel said.

“Where all the infected are?”

“Those bridges ain’t sturdy and we can’t get separated again.”

“I’d prefer a chance of getting separated instead of staying on the ground with those things.”

“If it collapses while we're on it we’ll fall to our deaths it’s safer to stick to the grou-”

“Just stop arguing! We’re wasting time let’s just get to the roof an-”

“JUST DO IT TESS!”

There was silence, neither breathed at all. The only noise was being made by the continual banging on the door.

“What?” Sasha asked in confusion.

“I- nothin’,” Joel said quietly, looking away. “Please. Let’s take the streets.”

She was silent and Joel continued looking away, closing his one good eye in case she started arguing again. But she didn’t. “Okay.”

She clearly wanted to ask what that was all about but he was grateful she didn’t. All this was bringing back too many horrible memories that he didn’t want to think about.

She followed him out a back door of the building which was probably some old auto shop and out into the streets where there was plenty to distract himself and Sasha from his sudden outburst, like the constant threat of death for example.

____________________________

  
  


The sun was getting real low and soon the orange painted sky would be coated in black. They needed to get out of the city before that happened.

They’d had a few close calls but nothing they couldn’t handle. They cut through buildings for the most part and had to strangle a few runners and stab some clickers here and there but it was all handled pretty well by the two of them.

“We’re almost there, just this last building,” Joel said, holding the door open for her.

“Thanks,” she said, passing him as he closed the door behind him.

“We can get out the back. They should both be waitin’ for us on the highway.”

They entered the hall that would soon get them out of this city only to have it blocked by debris. “Shit,” Joel muttered under his breath.

“Think you can lift it?” Sasha asked, checking over her shoulder to make sure they wouldn’t be attracting anything with the noise.

“Yeah but it’s not like I can keep the building from collapsing on us.”

“Well I mean we’re already here, what's the worst that could happen?”

“Uh, I just told you the worst,” he scrutinized her.

“Would you just lift the goddamn beam.”

He grunted, turning around and grabbing hold of it, she should probably be helping him with this but whatever she might as well watch his back. Once it’s high enough and he’s got a strong enough hold on it he tells her to go through.

Once she’s through she moves to grab it from the other side for him only for the creaking the rotten old wood was already making to start getting worse. He felt it collapse in front of him as he fell back to avoid losing any fingers. Now they were separated again. _Just perfect._

“You okay?” He heard her ask.

“Yeah, I’m alright. You-” A familiar screech filled the halls, that of a clicker. 

“Oh shit,” she stammered.

“Sasha,” he whispered, to no response. “Sasha, you there?” He called out again to no response once more. “Son of a bitch.”

He turned his head, seeing that the collapse had opened up a different way for him. He crouched through, immediately seeing the familiar stumbling walk of an infected. Also the clicking and the puss oozing out of its ankles only affirmed that this place was now crawling with clickers that were most likely sleeping prior to them entering the building.

Joel did his best to stay quiet, staying close to the ground and maneuvering his way around them while barely even breathing because he was fresh out of shivs and wasn’t confident enough to get into a gunfight. Especially because right now he just needed to find Sasha and get the hell out of here.

He finally made it to a door, one that would hopefully get him somewhat closer to Sasha. Once on the other side he placed a chair under the handle for good measure because at least that would maybe slow them down if they ended up making any noise.

As he got further down the halls he heard something, a gunshot, and a struggle behind a door. A scream, of fear or exertion he couldn’t tell but he just knew he needed to get behind that door. He rushed forward but something was keeping him from opening it. It was sealed shut and he rammed his shoulder against the door while listening to the screams from the other side.

“Joel help!” That voice. Tess. It was Tess’ voice, the way she screamed his name was unmistakable. What the hell was happening right now? It was like he was back in that Boston museum only this time the door wouldn’t open and he just had to listen to the screams emanating from the other side.

Finally it gave after he hit so hard he almost fell flat on his face. He looked up and immediately saw her. It wasn’t Tess, the hair was too dark and she didn’t have that familiar scar on her arm. Her screams were different, but she was screaming and he wasn’t gonna let Sasha die on him.

He grabbed a plank and smashed it over the clicker’s head. Once it was down he smashed it again, this time breaking it in half. Then with it broken he shoved the jagged end through the disgusting creature’s face.

He was breathing heavy and Sasha was leaning back on some old desk, breathing just as much.

“Show me your shoulder,” he mumbled.

“Huh?”

“Let me see your shoulder,” he said it louder this time.

“Why?”

“I just need to see it.”

She relented, shoving her shirt to the side to reveal her left shoulder, the one the clicker was going for. It was clean, no bite, it wasn’t turning red, there were just a few bruises that would probably be yellow by tomorrow morning.

She wasn’t bitten, not this time.

“Happy?” She asked, pulling her shirt back over her shoulder.

He scoffed, turning around and opening the door to get out of the damn building and get out of this godforsaken town.

They made it back not too long after. They found the kids in the area where Joel had told Ellie to bring Levi. Levi greeted Sasha with a huge hug while Ellie gave him a ‘hey Joel’ and a ‘you doin’ alright?’ Something was on her mind but he’d need to talk to her about it later. Right now he needed some rest because now that the adrenaline was wearing off he was becoming really tired.

They set up a small fire under the bridge and Joel volunteered to stay up and keep watch while everyone got some much needed rest. He needed sleep but when has that ever stopped him from staying up.

It didn’t stop Sasha from staying up either.

“Well John, looks like this is the end of our little journey.”

They were on the west side of town. In the morning they planned on following the highway and saying their farewells once their paths diverged.

“Looks that way.”

“You know my offer still stands. Me and Levi would be lucky to have you two around.”

“I appreciate it but… I think me and Ellie will be fine on our own,” he said, taking a swig of water from his bottle and offering it to Sasha to which she accepted. The offer was tempting but it was better he just stick with Ellie. Most people just died on him anyways, everyone except for that little girl. It was better if they just said their goodbyes now.

“Hey… there’s this um, this town. It ain’t too far North and if that’s where you’re going then I’d suggest headin’ to Jackson County.”

Sasha seemed a little hesitant, probably didn’t have too many great experiences with settlements in the past and he understood, not too many people had.

“I mean it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows there’s a bit of an interview and you’re kept under pretty close watch for the first couple of weeks but once you’ve settled in it’s…” he looked over at where Levi and Ellie were sleeping. Levi had his back against Ellie’s shoulder, his ears had Ellie’s earbuds lodged in them and they’d long since stopped playing. “It’s a good place to give a kid a chance at a uh… a normal life.”

Sasha took a moment to consider, staring into the fire and then back at Levi. He knew what she was thinking and every choice she was making in her head was all in the best interest of that kid. “Jackson County. Right?”

“Right.”

“We’ll um… we’ll check it out,” she murmured.

“And when you get there could you… There’s a man named Tommy who runs the place with his wife. You’ll meet him. Could you tell him that… Joel and Ellie are alright.”

Her eyes snapped up from the fire to meet his, they widened slightly at the name, then she understood. She nodded, the corner of her lips turning up slightly. Tess used to smile like that a little bit, maybe her smile wasn’t as different as he thought it was.

  
  


____________________________

“You know something Joel.”

He raised his head, Tess slurred her words a little bit after the excessive amount of whiskey she’d drunk for their celebration.

“No,” Joel replied.

“You may be the first person I’d be sad to see die.”

He huffed through his nose and took a swig of his whiskey. “Same here, ma’am.”

“Oh enough of the ma’am bullshit, it’s Tess,” she groaned.

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” a few more drinks and she’d be fully drunk and he didn’t really know if he wanted to see what that was like.

“So you’d be sad to see me go?” She asked.

“I would,” he answered honestly, but he hated that. He hated caring about anyone because he knew what was gonna happen in the end.

Tess seemed to be smiling to herself. “That’s nice,” she mumbled, it was quiet enough he wouldn’t have heard it if his hearing wasn’t so attuned. “But do me a favour.”

“What?”

“If I do die before you do, don’t be sad about it. I don’t need someone being sad about my death on my conscience.”

He huffed again at that. It was probably just the drink talking for her but he nodded anyways. “Sure thing.”

____________________________

  
  


In the morning they part ways when the road diverges, Ellie gives Levi a hug and Joel gives Sasha a handshake. “You take care of that kid of yours,” he tells her.

“I was gonna tell you the same thing.”

“Oh shit, I almost forgot,” she reached into her backpack, fishing for something and pulling out her walkman and earbuds. “Here,” she said, handing them to Levi.

He looked at her, hesitant.

“When I’m having a tough day I like listening to this tape,” she said, pointing to the one already in there. Still Levi seemed hesitant. “It’s fine. I got plenty of my own tapes, I can always find another one,” she assured him.

Finally Levi took it, making Ellie smile a little bit. 

Finally after stalling for long enough the two pairs headed their separate ways. Joel looked back one more time at the two people getting further and further away. 

“See you around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank god that chapter is done as much as I enjoyed attempting to write original characters. Next couple of chapters I want to try and focus a bit more on Abby's squad.


	10. The Demons We Forge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Insight into the past of some of the former Fireflies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S FINALLY HERE! I FINALLY FINISHED THE CHAPTER! I'm sorry I'm so bad at updating, I tend to get really slow as I get later and later into the story. I know people are here for Joel and Ellie but I feel the need to focus on our antagonists a little bit more so here's my version of the ex-Fireflies plus my OC Mike. Hope you guys think he's interesting I'm pretty nervous about it. Also feel free point out any errors I don't have someone to proofread or anything like that.

They were up to about three days of non-stop driving. Three days of absolutely no sleep for Abby even when Mike had finally decided to be a little courteous and offered to take the wheel she’d shrugged him off, telling him to get back to sleep. Now he was laying there beside her in the passenger seat with his head up against the window. He talked in his sleep most of the time, not so much right now but most of the time she could hear him and barely make out what he was saying.

But when she did it was always the same thing.

As much as she didn’t like Mike and as much as they fought she’d always felt for him. On that day they’d all lost so much, everything that meant anything to them. But she could tell Mike was always the most affected by it no matter how much he tried to hide it.

It was probably why he preferred doing things alone nowadays which Owen had tried to stop by pairing up with Mike whenever he could. Owen was the only person Mike could at least tolerate.

She looked over at him again when he shifted after mumbling something again. He’d always stayed clean shaven back in Seattle but now that they were on the road some stubble was starting to form on his face. It made him look older than he really was. In contrast to Owen who had grown a lot over the span of five years Mike had barely changed a bit, he still looked like that eighteen year old kid only with a few slight differences here and there. 

His short black hair was also growing in a bit and she knew he’d want to get that cut as soon as possible. He always preferred it short with it sticking up at the front. He always liked it like that.

_Wait, no._ She _always liked it like that. That’s why he keeps it that way._

She always wondered what was really going on inside Mike’s head, whenever he snapped back in Seattle and got into fights, whenever he got that look on his face when they were fighting Scars. The mind of Mike Patterson had always confused her since that day in the hospital, maybe even before.

“Huh,” she heard Mike mutter beside her. He was looking out the passenger window and she followed his gaze to a hospital that looked eerily similar to the one in Salt Lake City. “Reminds you of good times, doesn’t it?” He asked, shifting in his seat to face the windshield, crossing his arms and closing his eyes once again. He was trying to act like seeing that hospital didn’t bother him but he wouldn’t have brought it up if it didn’t. At least she could discern that.

“Yeah…” she mumbled, her grip tightening on the steering wheel as everything came flooding back. “Good times.”

____________________________

_5 years earlier…_

“Dad?”

“Dad!”

“Hey, you seen my dad by any chance?” Abby asked one of the soldiers passing her in the hall.

“Sorry, Abby,” he responded, shaking his head.

“Damn,” she kept moving through the halls shouting through her dad. If he was late then she’d get shit for it because he wasn’t there to get shit. It didn’t make sense.

Then she saw Nora, sitting on a window sill reading that book they’d found the other day. “Hey Nora,” she said, announcing herself.

“Hey,” Nora responded, not looking up. At least it seemed like the book was good.

“Have you seen my dad anywhere?”

“Uh…” she said, shutting her book and giving Abby her attention. “No but Lacey will probably know.”

“Thanks,” she said, heading back down the hall from where she came because she knew exactly where Lacey would be during her free time. She didn’t have to walk far to find the room she was looking for, normally she would’ve knocked but she was in a rush so that was probably why she wasn’t thinking straight.

She opened the door to see Mike in the middle of pulling his pants up, if she’d just been a few seconds later she wouldn’t have seen that.

“Woah, hey! What the fuck!” He yelled, moving to pull his pants up as quickly as possible.

“Sorry!” She yelled, moving her hand in front of his _area_ to block her view. “Is La-”

“Shut the door!” He yelled before he could finish.

She groaned, leaving and shutting the door and leaning against the wall. “Is Lacey in there?” She asked.

“No!” He yelled unconvincingly.

“Yes!” A woman’s voice yelled from the other side. Abby rolled her eyes, leaning against the wall as she heard Mike on the other side quietly berating her while she just snickered. Finally she opened the door, brown hair disheveled and lips swollen. She really didn’t want to think of what was happening just a few minutes before but the answer was right there on display in front of her. “What’s up, Abby?”

“Have you seen my dad?”

“Uh… yeah. He said he was heading to the river. Why, has something happened?”

“No, no,” Abby said. “They just worry about him.” She couldn’t blame them, it’s not like they had many surgeons as skilled as her dad at their disposal.

“Yeah, of course.”

“You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him,” she accused.

“I thought he had the right to leave whenever he wanted.”

“Not without protection, he’s too valuable.”

“Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. But don’t worry too much he can take care of himself.”

On the other side of the door they heard Mike bump into something, followed by him muttering “fuck” under his breath and they were reminded that they weren’t alone.

Lacey diverted her hazel eyes, looking the other way down the hallway while Abby looked down at her shoes. Lacey had been one of her oldest friends so seeing this was… weird to say the least. She was like a sister and nobody wanted to see their sisters in this state.

She heard Mike groan from within the room. He came into view, fully clothed this time.

“Are you gonna look for your dad or are you just gonna sit there in awkward silence?”

Abby rolled her eyes at him, getting off the door and heading towards the exit to find out what the hell he was doing down by the river.

____________________________

  
  


The door shut, _finally,_ and Mike leaned his forehead against it as Lacey went to grab her boots.

“Was that really necessary?” He asked, forehead still leaning against the door.

He heard her trying to contain her giggles from behind him. _And doing a piss poor job of it he might add._

“Oh you think it’s funny?” He tried to contain his smile and act serious but his lips twitched slightly upwards.

“It’s amusing,” she grinned, shrugging her shoulders.

“My embarrassment is amusing to you?”

“Are you embarrassed by me?” She asked, pouting her lips.

“Oh shut up,” he grinned. He was the furthest thing from being embarrassed by her, in fact he was the luckiest guy in the building and judging by the way all the guys glared at him whenever he had his arm around her he’d say that they agree.

“Hurry up,” he said. “We were supposed to be ready for patrols like five minutes ago.”

“Wait, what?” She said, scrambling to get ready faster. “I thought that was tomorrow!”

He chuckled, grabbing his pistol and holstering it. “Christ, how many times have you been late for patrols now?”

“Too many times and most of the time it’s your fault!” She said, shooting an accusatory glance his way.

“I don’t see you complaining,” he teased, halfway out the door. She threw something at him, probably her other boot but he closed the door before it could hit him.

“Asshole!” She yelled, her voice muffled by the door.

“I know,” he grinned, leaning against the wall beside the door as he waited for her to finish up. He smiled to himself, after everything that’s happened in his life, all the shit he’s gone through at least he was granted her.

He was a lonely and angry shit before her, he could admit that. Picking fights when someone simply brushed shoulders with him, sitting alone whenever training was over and lunch had started. Despite all that shit for whatever reason she chose him, and he couldn’t be happier about it.

“Hey, Mikey!”

He looked up, seeing Owen lightly jogging towards him down the hall. “Hey,” he replied.

“What’re you doing? We’re supposed to be heading out for patrols right now.”

“Yeah, I know I’m just… waiting on Lacey. We’re supposed to head out together.”

Owen shifted his gaze to the closed door, then back to Mike and his shoulders fell and he frowned. “You promised you wouldn’t do this again. I can’t keep covering for you guys.”

“Wh- we weren’t-”

“Yeah, you were,” Owen interrupted his terrible excuse for a lie.

“Okay yeah, we were but-”

“No buts. No more being late because of this shit again.”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry it won’t happen-”

“It won’t happen again. Yeah, you said that last time and look what happened.”

Mike groaned, angling his head and looking up at the ceiling. “You know, you and her are a lot alike. You never let me finish a goddamn-”

The door swung open, revealing Lacey, dressed up in her protective vest, her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, gun holstered and ready. “Okay, let’s go.”

Owen cracked a smirk, chuckling a little bit as Mike just got off the wall and started down the hall.

Lacey turned her attention to Owen, blushing a little bit as he stared at her disapprovingly.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No you’re not,” he replied, turning and following Mike down the hall as Lacey fell in line.

____________________________

“Dad?”

“Dad!”

Nothing but the birds chirping and the leaves rustling. No response from her dad which was something to worry about. She was near the river, probably close enough for him to hear her but she wasn’t getting a response. He wasn’t supposed to be this careless, he was supposed to look after himself.

“Where are you?”

He always did this so it shouldn’t worry or surprise her by now but it didn’t make her any less angry whenever he did it. Did he not get that people worried about him?

She jogged around, looking in buildings hoping not to find him bleeding out. She didn’t have to worry about infected, infected were only a problem near the highway and on the outskirts of town. Other than that their only real problem was whenever hunters passed through.

She checked another building, still not finding him.

“Not in here,” she mumbled to herself.

Leaving and heading over to the next abandoned area. It was some sort of booth, people paid to get into places and couldn’t just walk in like they could now. Inside she found nothing, again.

Well, she at least found a few things to read. Some pamphlets about giraffes, she’d only gone out to see them once. They were really cool, there was also a magazine about a bunch of animals. Some they hadn’t taught her about because it “wasn’t important.”

She was probably near the old zoo right now.

Her head shot up.

_So that’s what he’s doing._

Her dad was an animal lover, spending lots of times with the dogs they had around the hospital. Of course he’d come down to where the escaped zoo animals hung out.

She turned to see the entrance to the zoo was blocked by trees now. “Damn,” she said to herself, scanning the area till her eyes landed on a spot she could climb over. “Perfect.”

She made her way over, using the vines to scale her way up till she reached the top. Once up there she scanned the area and saw nothing dangerous in the vicinity. “Okay, here we go- OH SHIT!” She tried grabbing the vine but it was too late, she fell down the rest of the way and flat on her ass. Lucky for her, her fall was broken by some mud. Unluckily, her clothes felt shitty.

“Abby?”

She recognized her dad's voice calling out to her, luckily he didn’t sound distressed. “Dad?”

She saw him come out from behind some trees, looking perfectly fine thank god. “You okay?”

She looked down at her clothes, arms, and legs then looked back at him and scowled. “Just dandy,” she growled.

“You got some mud on you,” he teased, pointing to all of her.

“Yeah,” she said, reaching for some mud and flinging it at a random part of his body that happened to be his ribs. “You too.”

“Okay,” he laughed. “C’mon, get up,” he said, offering her his hand.

“Thanks, dad,” she tried her best to brush some of the mud off which was useless.

“Don’t worry about that, sunshine. It’ll dry up soon.”

“It’s still annoying,” she complained.

“Yeah, I know,” he acknowledged. A noise in the distance made both of them look in that general direction. Her dad’s eyes widened and he whipped back around to look at her. “Oh! I completely forgot, c’mon! You’re gonna love this.”

Her dad took off into the trees. “Hey, wait!” Abby yelled after him but it was too late he was already running. “Dammit.”

She chased him through the trees, just able to keep him in her line of sight. They arrived at the river and that was when she was finally able to catch up with him, stopping beside him to look at what he was looking at.

A zebra with her colts. She’d never seen them, she never had the time to go out and find them but they were way more beautiful than the faded pictures she’d seen in pamphlets and books.

“Wow,” she breathed.

“Right?” Jerry laughed, tapping her arm and motioning for her to sit down next to him by the river. They had a good view of the zebra’s on the other side of the river and they were able to watch them without scaring them off from here.

“Sorry we haven’t had much time to talk recently,” Jerry sighed, picking up a nearby stone and skipping it along the water.

“It’s fine. You’ve been busy.”

“I should never be too busy for my daughter,” he picked up a stone, tapping Abby on the shoulder and handing it to her. “C’mon, show me what you got.”

“Ugh, you know I suck at this.”

“Well practice makes perfect, sunshine.”

She threw the rock and all it did was sink to the bottom of the river.

“Heh, heh, heh,” Jerry chuckled, picking up another rock and chucking it into the river. It skipped three times before sinking to the bottom.

She shoved his shoulder which made him chuckle even more. “Showoff.”

“It’s really not that hard,” he picked up another, throwing it and just like the others it skipped. “So how’re your friends doing?”

“Okay.”

“How’s Nora’s shooting?”

“She’s still struggling,” Abby said, she couldn’t blame her for it either really. Abby still remembers when they first tried to get her to shoot a gun, how Nora’s breathing became uneven and she dropped it like it was on fire and ran away.

When Abby found her cowering away in some old broom closet that was when she found out about her gun phobia and why. Nora had told her that at only seven years old her older brother had become infected, her parents had died leaving them to fend for themselves and when her brother had turned and had lunged for her she was the one who had to pull the trigger.

It was something she’d never recovered from.

“She’s gonna need to figure it out,” Jerry sighed. “It’s dangerous to be her age and still not be able to handle a gun.”

“I know,” Abby grabbed another rock, lobbing it into the water and not even bothering to try and get it to skip.

“And what about you?” Her dad asked.

“What about me? I can shoot a gun just fine.”  
  


“No, I mean… are you doing okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Why? Is there something I should know?” She was sitting up now and giving her dad attention.

“No, no it’s just that… you know I try really hard to make sure you’re happy and that your childhood is as normal as possible. I just wanna make sure I’m doing a good job.”

Abby smiled slightly, enveloping her dad in a light hug. “You’ve done great, dad.” She muttered into his shoulder.

She couldn’t see his face but judging by his sigh of relief she could tell he was smiling. She felt his hand come up to her back as he returned her embrace.

“That makes me happy, sunshine.”

Eventually he released her and helped her to her feet. “We should probably be heading back,” he said.

“Uh, could we maybe stay and watch the zebras?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. They’ll get worried if we’re both missing for too long.”

“Like five more minutes?” She begged like she was ten years old again asking if she could stay up late and go over and play with Lacey.

He seemed to weigh it in his head before sitting back down and motioning for her to join him.

“Never could say no to you, huh?”

She smiled and enjoyed this moment, this life that was as close to peaceful as possible in this chaotic world.

____________________________

  
  


He still remembered the smell of the city. Roaming around the quarantine zone with nothing but the clothes on his back, a teddy bear, and tear stained cheeks. He remembered the way FEDRA treated people like garbage and how the second he was placed in an orphanage he was almost immediately taught how to fight, how to kill quickly and efficiently whether it was an infected or another person.

If he’d known those skills before then maybe he could’ve…

No, he couldn’t have.

It was strange thinking back on that smell of the city and comparing it to the fresh breeze out in the middle of the overgrown ruins of Salt Lake City.

To think that this place full of greenery and skyscrapers once smelled like that shitty quarantine zone that still gave him night terrors.

It was bizarre to say the least.

Even still, walking around the hospital and seeing soldiers all around, even though they had Firefly patches on, they didn’t dredge up any fond memories.

Lucky for him, Lacey was always there to push the bad thoughts away.

She nudged him with her foot from where she was sitting across from him on the back of the truck they were riding in.

“You’re staring at the ground pretty intensely,” she teased. “What’re you thinking about?”

“Nothing, just uh… feeling the breeze,” he said, averting his gaze to look at the path ahead.

Her shoulders slumped as she sighed and moved to the other side of the truck. She sat down beside him, looping her arm through his and placing her head on his shoulder.

“You’ve been having nightmares lately,” she said.

“I always have nightmares.”

“But you don’t always talk in your sleep.”

He sighed, closing his eyes and leaning his head back so he was facing the clear blue sky.

_The weather sure is great today. Spring and all that-_

She poked him in the ribs, disturbing his peaceful thoughts.

“Ow! Hey!”

“Don’t zone out on me,” she berated.

“Sorry,” he grinned.

“You promised you’d talk to me when things were getting bad again.”

“I know, I know,” he muttered guiltily.

“Was it about your parents again?”

“Heh, you know me too well.”

“So it was them?”

“It’s always them,” Mike sighed. “It might start with other stuff but it always ends the same.”

“Maybe you should talk to Dr. Peters about it? I mean he’s an actual therapist.”

Mike shook his head immediately, turning to look at her as she lifted her head off his shoulder to stare back. “He can’t help me anymore than you can.”  
  


“Mike, he’s the professional I’m just-”

“Lacey,” Mike lifted a hand to cup her cheek and she leaned into his touch. It made him smile knowing that she liked his touch. You’d think it wouldn’t surprise him at this point but you’d be wrong. “I’ve talked to doctors before and you know it hasn’t done shit for me. Something about you just helps, I can’t explain.”

“I mean… I thought you were getting better but every night it seems like you’ve been the same.”

She looked like she was about ready to cry and that was unacceptable to Mike. Anyone who made Lacey cry would get the shit kicked out of them by him and the prospect of fighting himself seemed awkward. He brought a second hand up to make sure she focused on him completely.

“Lacey, you have done everything you can do for me and I promise I’m better. Maybe I’m not good but I’m getting better, little by little, I swear.”

“It doesn’t feel like you are.”

“I am, I promise you.” He wasn’t lying, he wouldn’t lie to her about this. He lied maybe one hundred times a day but this was nothing but the truth. Since the day he met her he’d felt himself getting better, even just a little bit.

He noticed the crease between her brows and he placed a feather light kiss there to try and help put her at ease. He felt her relax and when he pulled back he saw her smiling up at him.

“You know you’re sweet when you try to be,” Lacey said.

“Lots of people would disagree with you.”

“Sure you’re a little rough around the edges.”

“A _little?_ ” Sometime ago he probably would’ve been ashamed of that but now that he wasn’t picking fights with people for no reason he could smile about it, especially since she didn’t mean it like that.

“Okay, _very._ ”

“Hm,” he wrapped his arm around her as she leaned back against his shoulder. As they simultaneously sighed in contentment the truck came to a sudden halt and they were reminded they weren’t on a leisure drive.

“Hey, hey!” Owen yelled once he hopped out of the driver’s seat. “I’m not your chauffeur to prom! We’re on patrol, focus.”

They both sighed, this time with no contentment, grabbing their rifles and hopping off the back of the truck.

“We should have a prom,” Lacey stated.

“Aren’t those things supposed to have lots of food? We don’t exactly have enough of that to have some big party.”

“Okay, then a dance. When was the last time we had one of those?”

“Last one I remember I was ten years old, wasn’t old enough to go,” Owen recalled.

“Wouldn’t you like to have one?” Lacey pressed.

“Nah, I’m good. Celebrating is the last thing we need with the military constantly on our asses.”

“Oh, come on. You could ask Abby,” Lacey teased in a sing-song voice which made Owen blush profusely.

“Poor Mel,” Mike grinned.

“What about Mel?” Owen frowned.

“Please, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Owen simply grunted and turned away which told Mike all he needed to know.

“Ladies just won’t leave mister Owen Moore alone will they?” Lacey caught up beside him to wiggle her eyebrows causing Owen to pick up his pace.

“Why am I stuck babysitting you two,” Owen groaned.

“Babysitting? I’m still a year older than you!” Mike exclaimed.

“You act like you’re five years younger!” Owen shot back.

Mike was about to throw back another retort when they heard moans coming from a nearby abandoned jewelry store.

All three of them quickly crouched and moved close to the walls to listen closely. Mike moved to an open window and waited until he believed none of the infected were close to it then took a moment to peak over the top. They were just runners, nothing too difficult. There were about maybe four.

He looked behind him and motioned for Owen and Lacey to join him by the broken window.

“We got five runners. Three roaming and two resting, I’m gonna hop through head right and take the resting one close to the door, Lacey take a quick look there should be one resting in the corner on your ten.”

Lacey only needed a split second to look in the room and find her target. “Got it.”

“You got your molotov?”

“Uh-huh,” she confirmed.

“Okay,” he looked around for something to throw and found a discarded brick right behind him. “Owen, you’re out here. Once me and Lacey have taken care of the ones catching z’s, throw this in the corner and Lacey’ll take care of them with a molotov.”

“Got it.”

“Okay, hold on,” Mike took a quick glance over the windowsill to check the runner’s positions. “Wait… okay now.”

Both him and Lacey hopped over and headed in opposite directions to take care of their targets. All this had always come easy to him, the planning, the fighting, and the killing. It was probably because when he was being taught those skills he didn’t give a shit. He had no reason to be afraid while training while all the other kids were shitting their pants.

He was a, how did the proctor put it, an _exemplary_ cadet. Which meant: _great job kid! you’ll be great at murdering people one day, hope you’re excited!_

It wasn’t like he liked killing, it was just easy. Like now when he grabbed this runner and shanked it before it could make any noise to warn his other buddies in the room. He peeked around the cupboard he was hiding behind to see Lacey taking down the runner he’d assigned to her and hiding behind her own cupboard.

Mike looked back to the window and saw Owen winding up to throw the brick in the corner. Every runner in the room heard it, screaming and running to investigate the noise and Lacey was able to wind up and throw the bottle perfectly and hit all of them.

“Ahh, easy,” Lacey said, standing up. Only one of the runners was a bit more resilient than most and hadn’t succumbed to the flames. It heard her and started immediately charging towards her. She wasn’t fast enough on the draw and the runner was getting dangerously close, as quickly as he could he grabbed one of the throwing knives from belt and threw it at the runners head, hitting it perfectly as it fell to the ground.

“Holy shit,” Lacey gasped.

Mike made his way over to pick up his knife and clean it off, placing it back on his belt. “You okay?”

“Mmhm.”

“We gotta work on your draw.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Owen hopped over the window, heading towards one of the runners to examine the body. “That was dramatic.”

“You’re telling me, I was the one it was charging at,” Lacey said, looking down at the runner’s limp body and giving it a kick. “Asshole.”

“These were recent,” Owen said, which caught both Lacey and Mike’s attention. “Couldn’t have turned more than five days ago.”

“You sure?” Mike questioned, walking over to Owen who was now shining a light in the runners eye.

“Yeah take a look, fungal growth around the eyes was only in the beginning stages.”

Mike started feeling around the runner’s body, checking for bullets or bandages or anything when he felt the familiar crunch of paper in its pocket.

He took it out, flipping it open and all breath left his lungs.

“Th- these… these are.”

“What?” Lacey asked and Mike just handed the paper over. “Oh.”

“What is it?” Owen asked.

Lacey looked at Mike sympathetically, then told Owen. “These are plans for a Hunter attack.”

Mike scrunched his eyes as he began to shake.

_Run, run and don’t look back!_

_We’ll always be with you!_

_Mike!_

_Mike!_

“Mike,” Lacey’s soft voice and touch brought him out of his thoughts and his eyes immediately softened. He knew the look she was giving him, he’d seen it plenty of times over the years.

_You’re not there._

_You’re here._

_I’m here._

_I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again._

“I’m fine,” Mike said, his voice strained. “Lacey, why don’t you go check the back rooms and make sure there aren’t any spores.”

She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something but ultimately decided against it, getting up to her feet and heading to the back rooms.

“What kind of idiot Hunters would think it’s a good idea to set up in Salt Lake City?”

“Special kinds of idiots that’s for sure,” Mike said, getting up to his feet.

“I mean, you have to be I guess to even think about an idea like that.”

“Let’s warn the other squads, let ‘em know they need to be on the watch.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that now,” Owen headed to the other end of the store and Mike had nothing else to do but distract himself and what other better way to do that then look at some shiny things. He was in a jewelry store after all.

He headed over to a cabinet and picked up the first thing he saw which happened to be a ring with a diamond over top. To think people would fight, rob, and kill each other all for a tiny little rock which was apparently worth so much. It was bizarre to say the least.

Nowadays it was food, weapons, shelter, clothes that people fought over. Essential things. Back then when the world was simpler and people didn’t have to worry about death being around every corner they could fight and kill each other over rocks.

He laughed at the thought.

He was so engrossed in the thought of how bizarre the concept seemed that he didn’t notice Owen come up behind him and tap him on the shoulder, causing Mike to jump.

“At ease, soldier.”

Mike sighed, looking back at the ring.

“Um…” Owen said.

“What?”

“Don’t you think you’re a little young for that?”

“Huh?” Mike questioned, he didn’t understand until he realised that he was holding an engagement ring and staring very intensely at it while his girlfriend was in the other room. “What? No, I- I wasn’t! I’m just looking at it, I’m not thinking about-”

_Although now that you mention it..._

_No, fuck off!_

“Alright, alright,” Owen laughed, raising his hands before Mike combusted. “Well hurry up, we should be finishing our patrols.”

“Y- yeah, go grab Lacey I’ll be waiting by the truck.”

Owen nodded and headed in the direction of the back room. Mike looked towards the ring before throwing it back in the broken display case and making his way back to the truck. He made it about halfway across the store before whipping around and grabbing the ring and shoving it in his pocket.

“It’s not like I’m _always_ gonna be young.”

____________________________

  
  


The rest of their patrols went by smoothly, they didn’t run into anymore infected or people which was what patrols normally were like.

They were taking a break, the truck was stopped in the middle of the road and Mike was drinking some water, Lacey was polishing one of her pistols and Owen had his feet up on the dash in the front seat when Mike’s walky-talky went off.

“Mike, this is Ian. Are you there?”

He placed his bottle down and answered back. “Yeah, what’s going on.”

“There’s commotion in the tunnels. Is your team nearby?”

“Uh yeah but I thought we were supposed to leave the tunnels alone,” Mike said, heading over to the passenger seat and knocking on the window to alert Owen that his break was over.

“Yeah, but after your reports of hunters in the area we need to make sure these are just infected and not people.”

He nodded and sighed. 

_Just when I thought I could head home._

“Okay, you need all of us?”  
  


“Two should do, you can ride back with us,” Ian answered.

“Okay, me and Lacey will be there in five minutes.”

“Okay, over and out, kid.”

He flinched when Ian called him _kid._ He always hated being called that, he didn’t know why.

“Lace!” He called.

“Yeah,” she looked up from her pistol which she had just finished polishing.

“We’re hiking over to the tunnels, Ian’s requesting some backup.”

“Am I coming too?” Owen asked.

“No, we’ll ride back with him. You head on home.”

Owen nodded, heading into the driver's seat and rolling down his window. “Make sure you two are home in time for supper!”

“Yeah, don’t you worry!” Mike yelled as Owen started the engine and started down the road back towards the hospital.

Mike and Lacey started in the direction of the bridge, walking in comfortable silence which Mike preferred right now. They were both tired and disgusting. They both just wanted to head home, eat, maybe take a quick shower then fall into bed.

They just had to deal with this tunnel situation and then they were home free.

They finally arrived at the tunnels, about to call out to Ian when they heard him yelling.

“Hands in the air!” He heard Ian yell. Mike placed a hand on Lacey’s stomach to get her to stop.

“She’s not breathin’,” he heard someone with a southern accent mutter.

“Hands in the fucking air!”

The man with the southern accent muttered something else before Mike heard the familiar sound of a stock meeting skull.

After that Mike knew it was safe to round the corner, motioning for Lacey to follow him.

“Ian!”

Both Ian and whoever was with him whipped around, pointing their guns before lowering them at the sight of Mike.

“Took you long enough,” Ian said, slinging his rifle around to his back.

“What’s going on?” Lacey asked from behind him as the guy with Ian started dragging some old guy towards the nearby tunnel wall.

“Found this guy causing all the commotion in the tunnels. Probably one of the hunters you mentioned.”

Mike nodded but then he remembered what this guy was saying before Ian knocked him out.

_She’s not breathin’._

He looked over Ian’s shoulder to see a little girl, no older than fifteen, unconscious and clearly not breathing.

“Oh Christ, what the fuck Ian!” Mike moved past him and headed over to the girl, putting his ear near her mouth. _Still not breathing._ Mike immediately got to work on chest compressions.

“What’re you- oh shit,” Ian said as he turned around and saw the little girl that was currently dying. “I didn’t see her.”

“How the fuck could you not see her?!” Mike scolded, still pressing down on the girl's chest. He sighed in relief when the girl coughed up water and her chest started to rise and fall. Her eyes opened for a faint second then closed once again. “Hey, hey. You okay?” Mike muttered, snapping his fingers in front of her eyes.

No response.

“Should we kill him?” The guy with Ian asked, pointing his rifle at the old man.

“He’s probably a hunter-”

“No, he’s not,” Mike said, scooping up the girl and holding her unconscious body in his arms. “They don’t stick with kids.”  
  


“Fine,” Ian grunted, as if he was disappointed he wasn’t gonna get to kill him. Mike never liked the guy to begin with but he was really pushing it now.

“Woah, woah, wait, hold on,” Lacey moved towards the girl in Mike’s arms, grabbing her sleeve as if she spotted something. “What’s that?”

_Oh shit._

“Mike!” Ian yelled, both him and his partner pointing their guns. “Step away from her!”

His command fell on deaf ears as Lacey’s eyes met Mike’s and they were both thinking the same thing. She didn’t have to say anything for Mike to know what she was thinking.

_This bite mark is too old._

_But it’s from a human shaped mouth._

_Marlene always mentioned a little girl who was immune._

_She left this girl with an old man._

_They were supposedly most likely dead._

“Mike!”

Mike was snapped back to the present when Ian and his partner started closing in on him slowly, assault rifles pointed.

“Woah, wait! Just hold on!”  
  


“That girl is infected! We have to put her down!”  
  
“Wait! This bite mark is way more than forty-eight hours old!” Lacey yelled. “Think about Marlene, about the immune little girl she would never stop talking about. A little girl she last left with an old man!”

Ian visibly faltered in his step but quickly recollected himself and aimed his gun back at Mike. “We can’t risk it!”

“The hell we can’t!” Mike yelled. “If she turns we can handle it but it’s worth taking her back to the hospital to confirm! Ain’t it?”

Ian and his partner stopped as he seemed to weigh the options in his head. Eventually he conceded, lowering his gun. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” Mike spat, Ian was really grating his nerves today.

“What about him?” Ian’s partner asked, motioning to the unconscious man with his back against the wall.

“Take him with us. If Marlene trusts him she’ll probably wanna talk to him when he comes to.”

They walked back to Ian’s truck and loaded the unconscious girl into the back, placing her carefully down onto the floor.

Lacey joined Mike at his side, visibly amazed. He’d never seen her so… _excited? Overwhelmed?_

“Do you think it’s really her?” She asked, a dangerous amount of hope in her eyes.

“I don’t know.”

“If it is her. Then everything we’ve lost, all the fighting we’ve done. It won’t be for nothing.”

“Yeah…” Mike muttered. “Maybe.”

He couldn’t place his finger on it but something was bugging him about it all. They’d all been fighting to find a cure for as long as he’d been with the Fireflies and now it was possibly laying down right in front of him. Yet something was gnawing at the back of his head and he couldn’t figure out what it was.

He’d figure it out when they were back at the hospital, after a shower when his mind was clear. Right now, they needed to take this girl back to base and get Marlene to confirm her identity. Then maybe it would be time to celebrate. Then he’d figure out what this weird feeling was that he was getting from the prospect of a cure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is! Chapter ten, this chapter and chapter eleven are EXTREMELY important and it's crucial that I get it done well so I really hope you guys liked it. We'll see Joel and Ellie again soon but the last two chapters were pretty much focused entirely on them and I think the antangonists deserve some love, especially since they're very important. Mike is my first stab at a OC being a major part of a story so I really hope he doesn't suck so far. Comments are always appreciated I like getting feedback and please leave kudos if you enjoyed. I'll see if I can get the next chapter out quicker this time. Thanks for reading!


	11. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That fateful day at the St. Mary's Hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike looks like Brett Dalton in case you need help picturing him.

They were gonna need to hunt again soon.

After their brief amount of time that they got to spend eating bunnies and a deer they were back to canned foods which everyone in the group detested. They were also almost completely out of it.

Lucky for them they’d run into a deer by sheer luck and Mike had thrown a knife right through its eye before Abby even had a chance to look for her bow.

After the skinning process was completed, along with the gutting and cooking they were now all seated around the fire as Mel got the plates of the meat ready. Jordan was carving whittling which was a habit she hadn’t known he’d picked up but it must’ve been recently because he was pretty bad at it. Nora was reading one of the books she’d brought along on the trips and Owen was staring lifelessly into the fire. 

Owen could stare at a fire for hours and not say a word, in fact Manny could too now that she thought about it. Sometimes she’d even catch Mike staring at the fire. Did men have a weird fascination with fires? They’d stare at it for hours even if another person was there and wouldn’t even say a word. She’d probably never understand it.

Mel was handing the plates out around the fire, Abby smiled up at her and gave her thanks. It was fitting that she was the pregnant one out of the group seeing as she was pretty much the group mom. When Mel came around to Owen his attention was finally drawn away from the fire to look at her, smiling and accepting his plate.

_There was a time he used to smile at you like that._

She flinched, looking away as she tried to quiet that voice in her head.

_How did you fuck it all up?_

Mel was walking away from the fire over to where Mike was sitting away from the rest of the group. He never sat with them. The only times he would is when it was excruciatingly cold and he needed the warmth of the fire.

Those times were becoming less and less now that things were getting warmer as they headed further and further south. They were just about to cross over the border of New Mexico and they could finally retire the heavy blankets.

Mel tapped Mike’s shoulder to gain his attention as he was fixated on the sunset as he always was. Twiddling with that ring that sat on his index finger that she never knew why he owned.

Mel tried her best to smile, even though Mike was always short with her. None of them really took it personally though as he was short with everyone.

He nodded to her which was the closest thing she’d get to a thanks but apparently Mel decided it was a good day to try her luck.

“Why don’t you join everyone by the fire?” She suggested. Abby saw Mike’s shoulders tense up, she’d say he had a short fuse but now that she thought about it he didn’t even have one. He was just a bomb.

“I’m good Mel,” he gritted his teeth.

_It’s just a suggestion asshole there’s no need to be snippy._

But apparently Mel wasn’t taking no for an answer today.

“C’mon, you always eat alone. Why don’t you-”

“Mel! I-” He yelled, raising his hand and Abby got to her feet because who knew what Mike was gonna do without Isaac here to keep his anger in check. But he closed his eyes, breathing in and turning away. Again, he fingered that wring on his index finger and as she looked at Owen instead of looking like he was on the verge of losing it on him he just looked sympathetic. “I’m good,” he said in a softer tone. “I’ll just eat over here but… thanks anyway”

Mel’s shoulders slumped and she returned to the fire, grabbing her own plate and sitting next to Owen. Mel just wanted to take care of people, always did and always would. Despite Mel’s slight distaste for Mike she still didn’t want him sulking away and eating alone all the time.

Apparently Owen couldn’t just leave it alone as he got up and headed towards where Mike was sitting, kneeling by his chair.

They spoke in a hushed tone, Owen didn’t seem angry that Mike had acted that way towards Mel, just empathetic and concerned. They’d never been best buds but Owen and Mike always had some sort of understanding that Abby could never figure out.

They’d all lost something important to them that day yet while Abby empathized with Mike’s pain she never understood why he was like this, only Owen seemed like he was the one who got it.

Mike was like a box full of puzzle pieces from completely different sets and she knew damn well she’d never get those pieces to fit. Only one person she knew could ever do that or at least had the will to try.

____________________________

  
  


_5 years ago..._

The sun had reached the highest point in the sky by the time Abby and her dad had made it back to the hospital. 

One thing worried the both of them however as they approached the entrance of the hospital. This morning everything had been simple, regular patrols, people were calmly strolling around the area and laughing about nothing in particular as they talked to their comrades.

Now everyone was scrambling, people placed on guard were doubled and it seemed like the whole hospital had gone into panic mode.

Abby and her dad shared a look of worry and headed in, maneuvering their way around the other Fireflies bouncing around the hospital like pinballs.

“Dad, what’s going on?” She asked, knowing he wouldn’t have any answers to her questions.

“No clue, sunshine.”

“Doctor!” A familiar voice yelled from the end of the hall. Both Abby and her dad’s heads whipped around to see Owen jogging towards them and trying to get past all the bodies blocking his path.

“Owen!” Her dad responded, meeting him halfway.

“We’ve been looking all over for you,” Owen coughed, placing his hands on his knees and wheezing as if to emphasize his point.

“What happened?” Her dad asked, his brow furrowing in concern.

“Marlene wants to see you in her office, right now.”

_Oh shit, something was really going down._

“You gotta fill me in here, Owen.” They started walking in the direction of the elevator at a brisk pace, Abby was just behind the two in front of her.

“You remember the girl Marlene kept talking about?” Owen asked.

“What girl?” Her dad questioned.

“The girl who was bitten but wasn’t turning.”  
  


Recognition flashed across her dad’s face and he halted in his stride as his breath seemed to completely leave his body. Abby was pretty much the same only she was looking to her dad because he always had the answer, he’d know if this was really happening.

“That’s impossible,” he whispered, probably trying to subdue his hope.

“We’ve had her for a few hours now and there’s still no signs of infection. Doctor…” Owen took a deep breath as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “This is real.”

Before Abby could get a word in her dad’s head shot up and he was sprinting towards the elevator. “Hold the door!” He yelled to the people in the elevator that was close to maximum capacity.

“Dad, wait!” She yelled after him but the doors had already closed by the time she made it.

“He’ll be in Marlene’s office for a while, no point in following; she'll probably wanna speak with him alone,” Owen stated, motioning with his hand for her to follow him to the stairs but she grabbed it before he could leave.

She paused and took a deep breath because there’s no way this wasn’t some miraculous dream. “Is this real?”

“Yes,” Owen said with conviction. Seemed like he didn’t really believe either.

_Fuck it._

She kissed him, partly out of joy and also because she’d been thinking about doing it for a while now. She pulled away to see him stunned with his cheeks turning beet red.

“Yup, it’s real,” she blurted and started scurrying away to the stairs before he could say anything.

When she was gone he was the only person in the hallway or probably the whole building that was standing still at that moment.

“What the fuck just happened?”

The rest of the day had passed in a blur. She didn’t have any responsibilities so all she could do was pace back and forth along with the rest of her friends. Naturally, seeing as she was the daughter of the head surgeon and her dad was currently preoccupied, all the questions her friends had were directed at her.

“Can we see the girl?”

“Are we even sure this is gonna work?”

“How long ‘till we get some results?”  
  


“Is it almost dinner time?”

“What happens if we make a cure?”

“Is the military gonna come after us for it?”

“I’m gonna go grab some beers, do you want any?”

“Abby, do you need a break?”

The last question came from Lacey who was eyeing her sympathetically, her hair was now set free from her tight ponytail now that she had the rest of the day to relax and she’d now ditched her fatigues for a plain gray t-shirt and some jeans.

Abby nodded and gave her friend a look of thanks before getting up and allowing Lacey to lead her to the nearest door. “Go bring your dad some dinner or something. I’ll hold off the mob.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks.” Abby turned to head in the direction of the kitchen before Lacey called after her.

“Have you seen Mike around?” Lacey asked.

“No,” Abby answered and after this morning’s incident she hoped she didn’t have to see him for the foreseeable future.

“Okay,” Lacey replied, her eyes shifting in thought before she sent a little wave to Abby before shutting the door. She heard more people yelling for her to come back before Lacey yelled over the crowd. “Hey let’s cool it! Quit worrying, Owen’s coming back with some beers so why not celebrate?”

She could hear the chorus of yeahs from the room as she made her way to the kitchen to get something to eat for her dad.

____________________________

  
  


“Thought I’d find you up here.”

Mike nodded and felt the urge to smile, he always felt that urge when he heard her, saw her, smelt her. Pretty much when any of his five senses came into contact with her he felt the urge to smile.

_When did you become such a sap, Patterson?_

“Here, thought you might want one,” she said, placing a beer on the box set up between two old lawn chairs. It was a spot he and her frequented often. It wasn’t exactly hidden since nowhere in the hospital was but it wasn’t frequented by other people often. It didn’t hold a tactical advantage as a watch area seeing as it overlooked an area that was far too rundown and dangerous that it was considered a death trap to set foot in any one of those buildings and it was also a chore to get to this part of the roof.

It was a small area with no windows or doors near it, meaning no easy access so whenever Mike or Lacey wanted to get up here they had to hop out some other window and scale the outside wall just to get up. Perfect place for a romantic little spot. They frequented it when they wanted some alone time or when Mike needed to think and didn’t wanna be disturbed. He was here for the latter.

Lacey could sense this and tried to take his mind off of whatever was going through his head. “Two beers in and Owen’s already slurring his words. Fucking lightweight,” she laughed. He offered her a small fake smile for trying but her efforts would be futile in the end.

“You should come down,” she suggested, approaching a different avenue. “Things are getting pretty lively. You might actually enjoy yourself.”

She’d tried since the day she met him to try and get him out of his shell, tried to encourage him to connect with people but it was always inconsequential in the end. He’d opened up to Owen at least a tiny bit but not nearly as much to the extent she’d hoped by now. She was the only one who knew the real him, the soft side he hid under all his prickly edges but no matter how hard she tried to show other people that person underneath he always shied away. Hiding behind harsh words and in the worst case scenario fists.

And yet she never gave up on him and he hadn’t the faintest idea why.

“I’ll think about it,” he replied but she knew it meant ‘no’.

She sighed, taking a sip of one of the beers she’d brought up with her. How she was able to hold two beers and make the climb up was beyond him but if anyone could do it it was her.

“What’s going in that head of yours,” she spoke softly, in that gentle tone that she used when she was afraid he’d pull away. She didn’t seem to understand that they were past that point, that he couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to and no matter how many times he assured her that she didn’t need to walk on eggshells around him anymore she always carefully constructed her words in every conversation.

He hated it but he couldn’t be mad at her for it. He was terrible to her for the first three years he knew her. He never understood why she didn’t just tell him to ‘go fuck himself’ and go on her merry way.

He’s glad she didn’t.

“I’ve, um… I’ve been thinking,” he replied.

“About?”

“About what happens if we make this cure.”

Silence fell between them as Lacey slouched back in her chair. Seemed she’d been thinking about it too. She took a big sip this time.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it too,” she said. “But I mean so is everyone else. You’re not alone, this is a big deal for everybody.”

“I know it is but that’s not the reason I needed to come up here.”

“Then why?”

Mike took a deep breath.

_This might not go over well but to hell with it._

“I’m gonna leave.”

Silence fell between them, he knew Lacey was staring, unblinking, right at him and he was just staring ahead and trying not to turn and see the look in her eyes.

He’d meant to say he was _thinking about leaving_ but now that the words were out they sounded right. He wasn’t _thinking._ His mind was made up.

“...w-what?” She asked, her tone soft and surprised which he’d expected.

He turned and froze, she looked… he didn’t even know what emotion it was. Sad? Angry? Confused? He didn’t know but it was a negative emotion and he hated it.

He’d planned what he was going to say, how he was going to explain himself but now all his words left him and all he knew was he needed to speak before she did… _something._

“I’m uh… I’m done. I’m gonna resign and head out into the world.”

_Not the best start but could’ve been worse._

“Why?” she asked.

_Right. I need to tell her why. Idiot, how did you forget that?_

“What happens after we make a cure?” He asked.

“I-,” she paused, taking some time to think it over. “I guess we produce it and send it out to settlements.”

“You think they’ll let us?”

“They?”

“The military,” he stated.

“What do you mean?”

“The Fireflies and military have been fighting since day one. You think they want us to be able to take the credit for a cure?”

“I’m sure they’ll come to some sort of truce,” she replied with a hint of doubt in her eyes and her voice.

“Yeah, ‘cause that’s worked out great in the past,” he said sarcastically.

“So what? You’re just giving up on everything we’ve fought for.”

“I… I never really cared about all that,” he admitted, averting his eyes down in slight shame.

“What? Then what have you been fighting for all these years?” He was expecting her to yell that question but she was always too nice, too understanding. He never understood it, he never understood why she put up with all his bullshit but he was grateful she did. However, this might be a lot easier if she was yelling at him, he was better at arguing than trying to articulate his feelings in a calmly manner.

“Look, Lace, when I joined it wasn’t because I believed in this cause or because I preferred them over the military it was because… what else was I gonna do?” He’d pretended to care about the cause at times but after _everything_ he didn’t think this world was worth saving. After he saw what people were capable of with no remorse. “It was either Fedra or Fireflies. It was pretty much a coin flip.”

Her lips tightened before she looked down, nodding ever so slightly. A part of her could probably tell he wasn’t fighting for any noble cause but just fighting because that’s all there was to do.

“Fighting just became a normality and for a while I was fine with that but now with a cure all this fighting is about to get a whole lot worse and I’ve realised that I’m sick of it,” he said.

“Where were you planning on going?” She asked.

“I don’t know. Probably somewhere up north, I heard things aren’t too bad up there and people are making some big settlements. Electricity and everything. It sounds kinda… normal.” Not technically normal seeing as chaos was his normal but it was what the older members described as a normal world. He didn’t mind the idea of getting to experience what that was like.

“Normal doesn’t sound too bad,” she said. “And what about me?” She asked softly, hesitant.

“I was, um…” This was probably the most nerve wracking part of this conversation for him. “I was gonna ask if you wanted to come with. Now, I know how much the Fireflies mean to you so I’m not trying to force you-”

“I’m coming,” she replied immediately.

He looked at her wide-eyed and stunned. He had a feeling she’d want to but he wasn’t expecting her to be so definitive about it. He figured he’d have to wait for a bit before he got her answer.

“R-really?” he stuttered pathetically.

_C’mon man._

“I thought we established a long time ago that I’m going wherever you go.”

He let out a breathy laugh, mainly out of relief. Then again she did promise him that and he knew she didn’t break her promises.

“When are you leaving?” She asked.

“Probably some time after they’ve made the cure. I’d at least like to see if it all works out.”

“That sounds good,” she agreed.

He’d expected to see more hesitancy in her eyes but there was nothing, she seemed sure about this which bothered him a little bit for one reason.

“I don’t want your life to just revolve around me. Are you really sure this is what you want?”

She looked away for a second, clearly contemplating as he held his breath because even though he wanted this to be her decision it’s not like he wanted her to say _no._

“Yeah,” she nodded.

He nodded, looking at the horizon and smiling to himself.

“Okay.”

____________________________

  
  


Abby had two plates in her hands, one for her dad and one for her. Both plates had some meat from a recent hunt on it. She was close enough that she could hear the conversation they were having and decided to wait outside so as to not interrupt them.

“So it’s intertwined with the brain?” She heard Marlene asked.

“Yeah, the only way to remove it would result in Ellie’s death.”

“Are there any other options?” Marlene asked, sounding slightly desperate.

“Not with the equipment we have, especially considering how old it is but maybe with time we could-”

“We don’t have time,” Marlene said, cutting him off. She sounded so exhausted lately.

“What do you mean?”

“The military is closing in on us. This is the only major base we have left after we lost Denver.”

“What about San Francisco?”

“Gone, military took it a few weeks ago.”

“What?!” Her dad almost yelled before Marlene shushed him. Abby really felt like she shouldn’t be listening to this but it was too late for her to stop now. “Why didn’t anyone know about this?”

“There’s been talks of a mutiny. Do you know what would happen if they knew San Francisco was gone too?”

“Marlene, please there needs to be some other option,” her dad pleaded.

“You're the doctor. Is there another option?”

“Well not with the equipment we have but with time then maybe I could come up with something else.”

“I told you we don’t have time,” Marlene sighed, sounding sad and Abby felt like she was about to be sick. After all she was listening in on a conversation about whether or not her dad should kill a girl not that much younger than her.

“My sources have told me the military is mobilizing to move on Salt Lake City. They’ll be here soon.”

“What? Then why aren’t we getting set to leave? Why aren’t we getting the girl somewhere else-” Her dad paused, realizing something. “Are you planning to use the vaccine as a bargaining chip?”

She couldn’t listen anymore, to hell with answers if she was gonna pass out in the process of getting them and instead she chose to open the door. Announcing herself before they could continue.

“Hey, brought you dinner dad!”

Her dad went pale and Marlene seemed to just look even more exhausted if that was even possible. It seems she’d already figured out Abby was listening in.

“I’ll leave you to eat,” Marlene said. “I’m gonna go see if Joel’s up.”

With that, Marlene left her office leaving just her and her dad still looked like he’d seen a ghost. She leaned on the desk with her food but not taking any bites.

“How much of that did you hear?” He asked hesitantly.

“Too much.”

He sighed, bowing his head and tucking his chin against his chest and burying the fingers of his right hand in his hair.

“Are you gonna go through with this?” She asked.

“I- no? Yes- I don’t know!” He got off the desk, now both hands were in his hair and he was pacing. “I don’t really have a choice.”

“You’re gonna kill this girl?” She asked, she didn’t know if she should be shocked after that conversation but she was.

“Don’t say it like that please.”

“How else am I supposed to say it?”

“Sunshine, think about it like saving millions.”

“By killing someone else?”

“Abby-”

“You always told me that we don’t trade people’s lives.”

“That’s different,” he stated even though he sounded like he knew it wasn’t.

“How?!” She screamed.

This wasn’t right. Her dad wouldn’t just head straight to sacrificing someone’s life. He’d find another way, he’d study the person's brain until he could find a way to make a vaccine without killing the host.

This was all wrong in every way possible.

“Shouldn’t it at least be up to her? This girl should get a say in it shouldn’t she?”

He was silent.

“Shouldn’t she?!”

“Abby…”

“What? Do you think she’ll say no?” She growled, disgusted by what her dad was telling her.

“I don’t know! She- I-” He stuttered and became more and more flustered. She knew he didn’t mean ‘I don’t know what she’ll say’ but rather ‘I don’t know how to justify this.’

“What if it was me?” She asked, this was his last chance here.

“I’m doing this for you.”

“But what if I was immune. Would I get a say?”

“Of course!” He said with conviction and she knew he meant it.

“But she doesn’t?”

He didn’t say anything this time. Didn’t try to stutter out a reply because he knew it wouldn’t be convincing, he knew what his real answer was even if it wasn’t the one he’d try to tell her.

“Okay then,” she snarled, turning on her heel and heading for the door.

“Abby, wait!”

“Stay the fuck away!” She screamed, slamming the door behind her and running off to get far away from the hospital.

  
  


____________________________

  
  


“Okay, so we ask around for a location of a settlement. Then what?” Lacey asked.

“Hope it’s near a lake. I wanna go fishing every chance I get,” Mike replied.

They were lying down in bed. Soldiers had settled into their posts and guard routines and luckily neither of them were needed for anything tonight. Lacey’s head had settled over his heart and Mike had both his hands settled behind his head.

“You already fish every chance you get,” she giggled.

“And I will continue to do so.”

She snickered, snuggling in closer and yawning. “It’s fine. I don’t mind watching you fish.”

“I should probably be the one who cooks it though,” she grinned.

“You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

“I told you it was the first time I’d cooked anything,” he laughed.

“And the last time,” she replied, lifting her head to smile at him.

_How the fuck does she keep her teeth so white?_

“I might be willing to try again.”

“Please don’t.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“I’ve seen how bad it can be. They almost shut down the whole building.”

“That was an overreaction.”

“I’d disagree.”

He chuckled, lightly shoving her face away and she propped herself up on her elbows to look down at him.

“Say we get accepted into one of these settlements. What do we do?”

A small voice in the back of his mind spoke up.

_I’ve still got that ring._

He shook his head slightly. _Too early._

“Live some sort of normal life I guess.”

“Is that even possible?” She asked, suddenly serious.

“That’s why we’re leaving. To see if it is.”

_I wanna give you a normal life._ He didn’t say it but somehow she heard him as he saw her relax above him.

“That sounds good,” she said, lightly stroking the back of her fingers over his forehead and moving her face closer to his.

He shot up, his eyes suddenly wide, his heart racing and he was holding his breath to listen closer.

He heard it again.

“Was that a gunshot?” Lacey gasped.

“Yeah,” Mike said, leaping out of bed and slipping his boots on. “Stay here.”

“Mike don’t be ridiculous-”

“Lacey,” he pleaded, placing both his hands on her arms to keep her from following him. “Please stay here.”

It took a second before she nodded, moving back to sit down on the bed as he grabbed a gun off her dresser and opening the door.

“Mike wait!”

He turned just in time for her to crush her lips against his. It wasn’t _goodbye,_ it was more like a hurry _back._ So why did it feel like goodbye?

“I’ll be right back.” He assured her before shutting the door and heading off to investigate what the hell was going on.

____________________________

  
  


He was standing over the body of the drugged little girl now, mask and scrubs on. He was really gonna do this. He was really going to kill this little girl for the benefit of millions and for the benefit of Abby.

This vaccine would help bring back the old way of the world, reestablish society, let kids grow up in a world where they don’t need to learn how to kill quickly and efficiently but instead learn math and science.

He can do this. He can do this.

_Fuck I can’t do this._

“Doctor?”

Jerry snapped his head towards Kari and realized how heavily he was breathing and he was starting to sweat.

_We do not trade lives._

He’d told Abby that years ago. What a hypocrite.

“Are you ready doctor?”

“Y- yeah. Of course.” He tried to sound confident but his voice faltered and he sounded like the furthest thing from confident.

_Sunshine, please forgive me._

____________________________

  
  


Mike ran swiftly through the walls of the hospital towards the sounds of commotion, pistol in hand. He’d arrived at a hall, lots of men and women in fatigues aiming rifles at the other end.

“What’s going on?” He asked one of the nearby soldiers.

“It’s that smuggler who brought the girl. Guess he didn’t like the deal we made.”

Mike turned his attention to the door. It shouldn’t be that much of an issue, just one man against a bunch of trained soldiers.

Except everyone around him was sweating, some of their grips on their rifles were shaky which didn’t make any sense to him.

“Who is this guy?” He asked, curious as to why everyone was freaking out.

“Joel Miller. Marlene always talked about how he was one of the most dangerous men she’d ever known.”

He’d heard the name Joel thrown around a few times in passing conversation but he’d always believed it was over exaggerated or if it wasn’t the guy would be dead before he ever got to see if it was true.

_Guess I’m about to find out._

“Where is he now?” Mike asked.

“Cleared the third floor. On his way up here.”

_Well shit._

Mike tightened his hand on his gun, today wasn’t gonna be the day he died. Not when he had something to look forward to.

Suddenly smoke filled the doorway they were all looking at, there was a shadow and everyone fired at it before the smoke cleared and there was nothing.

“He’s here!” Someone yelled. “You, in those rooms. You three stay here. He does not get through this door!”

Mike was one of the people ordered to stay by the door. He crouched down behind cover, waiting.

Waiting… waiting…

Something felt off, there weren’t as many footsteps as before but he hadn’t heard any fighting. But he knew that they were missing people. So he closed his eyes, held his breath, and listened.

_There._ He heard it, ever so slightly was the sound of someone’s breath leaving them and eventually being lightly laid on the ground. And he knew where it was coming from.

He quickly grabbed one of the grenades strapped to one of the people assigned to protect the door and tossed it in the direction. Looking over cover he saw who he could only assume to be Joel leaping from cover.

“Now!” He yelled, everyone began firing off in his direction.

_One, two, and three._

It took all of three seconds and three shots before each of his companions had a bullet in their heads, he was able to move just in time but the bullet grazed his head and caused him to bite down on his cheek in pain as ducked back behind cover.

_Holy shit._

Blood was leaking down the side of his face. A quarter of an inch to the right and he'd be dead along with the rest of his comrads. Lady luck hadn't given up on him yet apparently.

He listened, heard Joel slowly making his way towards cover and he held his breath. Ready to hop out.

He waited… and waited…

Mike shot to his feet, grabbing and moving the gun out of harm's way just as Joel fired off a shot.

He wasted no time in going for a punch which Joel ducked under. Joel went for a punch of his own which Mike was able to block and he returned it with a jab to Joel’s gut, followed with a punch with the same hand to his cheek.

Joel grabbed Mike at the waist, pinning him against a barricade and driving his shoulder into Mike’s gut.

It sure did hurt like a son of a bitch he’ll give him that.

Mike was able to maneuver Joel away from him but he quickly got an uppercut to the jaw for his troubles.

_This old man hits hard._

Mike quickly sent a quick kick in Joel’s general direction which luckily seemed to land hard.

He could see this fight going for a while but he just needed to keep him busy until others arrived. And keep him close because the guy might have another gun.

Mike’s pistol was long since abandoned on the floor, lost in the one on one fight.

_Just keep him busy until the others get here._

“Mike?”

_Oh no._

_No no no no no no no._

“Lacey, get outta here-”

Joel grabbed him around the neck, pulling a revolver out from somewhere and aiming it at Lacey.

He didn’t make demands. Didn’t tell her to back away and put her hands behind her head.

Joel just took the shot.

Mike made some sort of strangled cry in the back of his throat. He could barely hear, maybe because the gun was so close to his ear, maybe because Lacey was on the ground and clutching her bleeding stomach.

He heard the sound of a gun click, empty, before he was bent over and a knee connected with his face and sent him to the ground.

That knee did something because now he could hear and he could see Lacey on the ground trying desperately to keep the blood from spilling out.

He should be out cold but the adrenaline helped him move over to Lacey and hold her.

“No no no no,” he muttered, holding her stomach.

“Mike…” she said. She sounded so weak already.

“Don’t- stop. Don’t speak.”

“Mike, I’m not gonna-”

“Don’t even finish that sentence!” His voice cracked and tears were leaking out of his eyes.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to leave, they were supposed to find a happy place. She was finally gonna teach him how to properly cook and not burn the whole place down and maybe one of these days he was gonna give her that ring.

Instead he was holding her in his arms and failing miserably at keeping the blood from flowing out of her stomach.

“Help!” He screamed out in desperation. “Someone help! Please!”

“Mike,” she whispered because she didn’t have the strength to speak anymore. She lifted her hand to his face, it was covered in blood but that was the least of his worries as of right now. “I l- I love you. Okay? Please don’t forget that. Please.”

He nodded.

_Don’t go back to the way you were._

Her hand fell from his face and her eyes went blank.

He couldn’t hear anything but ringing, he didn’t feel anything but emptiness, he didn’t see anything but red.

He grabbed her pistol and followed after Joel.

He passed through the surgery room, the doctor was lying dead on the ground with blood pouring out of his neck while Kari and whoever the fuck the other guy was were huddled and crying.

_So they get to live but Lacey doesn’t?_

His grip on the pistol tightened and he moved to where he heard more yelling and some gunshots.

When he’d turned the corner he was just able to catch Joel with a girl in his arms as the elevator doors started closing.

He didn’t bother heading for the elevator but instead made a beeline for the stairs. Jumping down all of them as fast as he could to catch him in the parking lot.

When he arrived at the level he barely saw Marlene’s corpse on the ground. It barely phased him, he didn’t care, because he saw Joel shoot him one last look before getting into the driver's seat of a truck and slamming his foot down on the gas.

_Mike._

_Mike, don’t scream to let out your anger anymore._

_Take a breath._

_Go on a walk._

_Or talk to me._

_Don’t scream._

_It just enrages you more._

Mike’s primal scream echoed through the parking garage as he emptied the clip into the truck. It did nothing to stop it as it exited the garage.

Mike dropped to his knees and dropped the gun along with it. He didn’t even remember he’d been shot and that blood was dripping down the left side of his face. He didn’t even feel it.

He didn’t feel much of anything right now.

_Take a breath._

_Go on a walk._

_Or talk to me._

_Don’t scream._

_Don’t bloody your knuckles._

_It just enrages you more._

He drove his fist into the pavement. It probably should’ve hurt, it most definitely would hurt later. But he didn’t feel it at all

He felt empty.

____________________________

  
  


Abby had a pistol in her hands as she made her way to the hallway and her eyes landed on the red door that led to the surgery room.

Bodies lined the hallways and blood caked every surface. There’d been a massacre while she was gone and the trail led to the surgery, where her dad would be working.

Her heartbeat echoed in her ears as she sprinted to the door, kicking it open. She heard muffled voices on the other side and opened the door cautiously but only saw Owen and Manny.

But Owen was kneeling over a body.

“Is he still in the fucking building?”

“Is that-” Abby stuttered and Owen immediately moved over to her.

“Abby, no.”

“No!” She screamed.

“Don’t look.”

“Dad!”

Her dad was lying on the ground, blood coating his chest and leaking onto the floor. Owen tried to stop her from looking but she ran over and fell to her knees in front of the body.

He tried lightly prying her away but she wouldn’t let him as she knelt over and sobbed into her dad's unmoving chest.

Owen’s hand fell lightly over her shoulder to try and offer her some form of comfort.

She didn’t feel any better.

The last thing she told him was to “stay the fuck away.”

That was his last memory of her.

Abby could never take it back, never tell him that she knew he was just trying to do what he thought was right.

She couldn’t do that now because here he was. Dead. She’d never get that apology, never get a second chance. In that moment she had no idea that the next time she’d see him he’d be lying on the ground in front of her.

She felt helpless and broken.

____________________________

  
  


_Present day…_

She hadn’t thought about that day in a while. Of course she remembered every bit of it. It was the whole reason she was on this journey. But it had been a while since it had been at the forefront of her mind.

It was probably because she was sharing the car with Mike now and his constant muttering in his sleep caused her to think back on that day.

“Lacey…” she heard him mutter almost inaudibly. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. Fuck it if he was gonna be tired but she couldn’t listen to him anymore.

“Mike,” she said, trying to rouse him a bit gently.

He twitched slightly.

_That was worrisome._

“Mike?”

He moved his head, he was shaking slightly.

_He’s not crying is he?_

“Mike!”

His eyes shot open and he turned towards her like a man possessed.

“Jesus,” she said as he immediately put on a mask of calmness and stared ahead at the road.

“Something wrong?” He asked.

“No, you were just talking a lot in your sleep.”

“Oh…” he knew. He must’ve. But he never told anyone what he was really thinking. She always knew that what happened to Lacey hurt him but she still never understood what he was going through most days. She just knew it was a negative emotion.

“You okay?”

“Yeah… just dandy.”

They both knew that was bullshit. They were both the least okay people in this group.

“Right,” Abby said. “Same here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter Joel and Ellie will return.


	12. Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Joel have a rest by the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just started Witcher 3 and it's dope af so far. (Yennefer is bae I'm not sorry.)

Joel had the deer in his sights through the scope of his sights through the scope of his rifle. He hadn’t kept track of how long they’d been on the road by now but this was the first time Ellie had let him grab a rifle to hunt some food for them.

He hated the thought. Almost despised that she was the one who had to watch over him now. The last time she’d had to do that was that one dreadful winter and despite her best efforts to hide the pain she still carried from those horrible months, he knew that she’d never fully recovered from it. He could easily recognize when someone was still carrying old faded scars, after all, he still did.

He held his breath to keep the rifle as steady as possible as his fingers tensed and prepared to pull the trigger. Typically he’d be using his patched up eye to look through the scope but that wasn’t an option for obvious reasons so he made due with his other one.

Joel pulled his finger back on the trigger and a loud crack wrang throughout the forest. He’d hit the shot and could see the deer falling to the ground through the scope on his rifle.

He breathed a sigh of relief, then realized that he was actually _relieved_ he was able to hit the shot. Something that would have taken zero effort before was now something to feel accomplished about.

_This is why Ellie looks at you with pity in her eyes. She has to take care of you._

The adjustment to living with one eye was harder than he thought it’d be. Tracking moving objects was harder, he couldn’t see as far anymore, and obviously his peripheral vision took a huge hit.

He felt useless.

As he dragged the deer back to where Ellie had set up camp for the night he pondered other ways he could be more useful now that he wasn’t as capable as he was before. Maybe a meat shield if Ellie was in danger, or a decoy.

No, that’d just piss her off as much as it’d make her terrified.

He still had things to teach her. She was a good hunter but there were things she could be better at. And there was her fighting ability. She was quick, quicker than him but not nearly as strong. It was something he had to keep in mind when teaching her how to fight. He couldn’t teach her the exact way he fought because he often relied on his size to overpower his opponents. One thing he could help her correct however, were her bad tendencies.

He’d noticed it when she fought Jack. She didn’t know Joel was there as he was deliberate in making sure she wasn’t aware that he was around in order to avoid being shunned by her as he usually was. She’d relied on her agility and head movement in that fight; if things weren’t the way they were she could’ve been one hell of a boxer. But she was far too reliant on it which meant her guard was weak and that was why Jack was able to slip in a quick, hard kick and knock her to the floor.

She could take perfectly good care of herself now, that was something he’d have to come to terms with. But, he could always show her how to do it better.

He’d reached the area they’d chosen to set up camp. Far off from the road at the bottom of a hill. She was sitting there, poking at the fire with a stick to alleviate her boredom when he saw her head turn at the sound of his approaching footsteps.

“Woah, nice kill!” Her mouth quirked up slightly at the sight of what would be a full meal.

“See,” he grunted, letting the deer go and pulling his knife out to get to skinning it. “I ain’t completely useless.”

“I never said that you were,” Ellie stated from behind him.

“You didn’t have to,” he said quietly so she wouldn’t hear it. He knew she probably did anyways.

“Did you enjoy your alone time?” She asked. Something had been off about her lately. Most of the time they were too focused on covering as much ground as they could to really engage in conversation but when they did the way she talked to him seemed to change. Sometimes she was fairly animated and it reminded him of their other trip across the country together. Other times she was closed off and gave one word answers. He wished he could get inside her head, at least a little bit, and try to understand some of her thoughts so he could help her. But this was the most she’d been willing to talk with him in months and regardless if it was just because of the fact that he was the only one around, he wasn’t going to push his luck.

“It was nice to get the rifle in my hands again,” he replied. He sliced up some pieces of the deer and handed them over to Ellie to start cooking. “And it gave me some time to think on how I can be more helpful.”

He heard Ellie sigh with exasperation behind him. “Joel, I already told you, you’ve been more than helpful.”

He knew she was just saying that but he appreciated the gesture. “Well, I wanna be more helpful anyway. Reckoned I could help fix your _lacklustre_ hand-to-hand combat.” He threw in the word _lacklustre_ as a playful challenge as he knew it would coax her into training which she usually wasn’t all that interested in.

“Oh, lacklustre huh?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded.

“Wow, okay old man. I’ll show you lacklustre,” she rose to her feet and brushed herself off.

“Okay, hands up,” he told her.

“What, it’s not like you’re gonna hit me anyways.”

“I’ll bet you thought the same thing when you fought Jack.”

Here eyes widened slightly at the memory and probably the realization that he was there. “You saw that?”

“Yup, you lost ‘cause your guard ain’t strong enough. So, put your hands up.”

“Ugh, fine,” she growled. “Give me everything you got.”

He didn’t give her everything he got but it wasn’t exactly a love tap. Joel just chose to punch hard enough that it wouldn’t hurt her. Even still, she fell to the floor.

“Gotta be stronger on your feet too.”

She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand but she was laughing, just a little bit, but it was a genuine laugh which was becoming far and few in between.

He saw her eyes widen with fear as she looked to his left and he reacted quickly before she could scream “look out!”

A runner lunged right for him and he was able to stick his forearm out just in time, sticking it under its chin and onto its jaw to keep it from bay. It clacked its teeth at him as he moved his head back to keep it from coming any closer.

He felt the weight of it leave his body after Ellie had kicked it off of him and two shots rang out after she put two bullets in its head.

“Goddammit,” he grunted, quickly getting to his feet.

“You okay?” She breathed.

“Just great,” he gritted through his teeth.

“Hey, there’s no need to be pissed at me!”

“I ain’t-!” He cut himself off, closing his eye and taking a breath. “I ain’t pissed at you kiddo. Never.”

“Then what are you-” Now it was her turn to cut herself on when she no doubt realized what he was angry about. “Don’t tell me you’re pissed at yourself.”

His silence was enough of an answer for her.

“Ugh, Joel. It’s dangerous out here which means sometimes stuff like that is gonna happen.”

“I was careless.”

“I said it’ll happen.”

“I ain’t talkin’ bout just now,” he said.

She sighed, walking closer to Joel as he methodically checked his bullets. It was a habit he’d taken up a few years ago to try and calm himself down.

“You couldn’t’ve known,” she said, her voice softer this time.

“I shouldn’t’ve been in that situation to begin with.”

“You were trying to help somebody,” she said, trying to reassure him.

“Whole lotta good that did me,” he muttered. “Think I’m still alive because I used to help people? Helping others is a mistake.”

“So helping me across the country five years ago was a mistake?” She asked, she didn’t sound offended. He knew what she was saying.

“No. I’ve made lots of mistakes kiddo but you ain’t one of ‘em.”

“Neither was helping _Abby_ ,” she said, lacing Abby’s name with venom in her voice. “It’s her fault this happened to you. Not yours.”

He gave her a small smile, as a way of thanks. He wasn’t entirely convinced that it’s nobody’s fault but his own but she at least helped take the load off his shoulders for now.

“We ever see that bitch again. I'm gonna make her pay,” she gritted.

“Don’t go seeking vengeance,” he said, he went over to the fire to remove the deer meat and put it in one of the plastic cases Tommy gave them. “It’s an idiot’s game. I know that first hand.”

“Didn’t seek vengeance much as a smuggler?” She asked, sitting down next to him to share the meal.

“I settled debts people had with me and Tess. I didn’t seek vengeance.”

“What’s the difference?” She asked with a mouthful of food.

“Debts are business, vengeance is personal,” he said. “And don’t tell me you’ve got a debt to settle with her because I ain’t your business.”

He tore a chunk of meat and shoved it in his mouth and turned to see Ellie was looking at him strangely. “What?”

“I don’t know. I just figured you’d wanna get back at this girl. Settle her debt or whatever.”

“Nah,” he said. Maybe ten or some years ago but he was old now. And the memory of the last time he sought vengeance was still all too fresh in his mind. “I’m alive. Best way to stay that way is to avoid her.”

She seemed to be done eating, her arms were crossed and her eyelids seemed to be growing heavier and heavier but he could tell she was trying to fight it.

“You can get some rest,” he told her. “But we gotta get movin’ again in at least two hours.”

He got up from the log when her head fell back and her eyes finally shut. He grabbed the rifle to go somewhere to keep watch where he could still keep her in view. From where he was on the hill he could see a bit of the old, decrepit highway and an old yellow sign, the words faded with time but with enough lettering that Joel could fill in the blanks.

_Welcome to New Mexico._

_The Land of Enchantment._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering, yes that is an RDR2 reference. Just a short chapter to show that I'm not dead and also to mark the middle of the story. One state away from Dallas but some important stuff is about to go down so get set.


End file.
